The German reunification (German: Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR (German: DDR)/East Germany) became part of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG (German: BRD)/West Germany) to form the reunited nation of Germany, and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity (German: Deutsche Einheit), celebrated on 3 October (German Unity Day) (German: Tag der deutschen Einheit).[1] Following German reunification, Berlin was once again designated as the capital of united Germany.

The 1945 Potsdam Agreement had specified that a full peace treaty concluding World War II, including the exact delimitation of Germany's postwar boundaries, required to be "accepted by the Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established." The Federal Republic had always maintained that no such government could be said to have been established until East and West Germany had been united within a free democratic state; but in 1990 a range of opinions continued to be maintained over whether a unified West Germany, East Germany and Berlin could be said to represent 'Germany as a whole' for this purpose. The key question was whether a Germany that remained bounded to the east by the Oder-Neisse Line could act as a 'united Germany' in signing the peace treaty without qualification. Under the "Two Plus Four Treaty" both the Federal Republic and the GDR committed themselves and their unified continuation to the principle that their joint pre-1990 boundaries constituted the entire territory that could be claimed by a Government of Germany, and hence that there were no further lands outside those boundaries that were parts of Germany as a whole.

The united Germany is not a successor state, but an enlarged continuation of the Federal Republic. As such, the enlarged Federal Republic of Germany retained the West German seats in international organizations including the European Community (later the European Union) and NATO, while relinquishing membership in the Warsaw Pact and other international organizations to which only East Germany belonged. It also maintains the United Nations membership of the old West Germany.

For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term "reunification" during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende. The official[1] and most common term in German is "Deutsche Einheit" ("German unity"); this is the term that Hans-Dietrich Genscher used in front of international journalists to correct them when they asked him about "reunification" in 1990.

After 1990, the term "die Wende" became more common. The term generally refers to the events (mostly in Eastern Europe) that led up to the actual reunification; in its usual context, this term loosely translates to "the turning point", without any further meaning. When referring to the events surrounding reunification, however, it carries the cultural connotation of the time and the events in the GDR that brought about this "turnaround" in German history. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SED's (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, Socialist Unity Party of Germany) Secretary General Egon Krenz.[2]

Initially, no timetable was proposed. However, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germany's first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohl's Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification. Second, East Germany's economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany was long reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the removal of Communist hegemony revealed the ramshackle foundations of that system. The East German mark had been almost worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90, and the collapse of the East German economy further magnified the problem.

Discussions immediately began for an emergency merger of the German economies. On 18 May 1990, the two German states signed a treaty agreeing on monetary, economic and social union. This treaty is called Vertrag über die Schaffung einer Währungs-, Wirtschafts- und Sozialunion zwischen der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland ("Treaty Establishing a Monetary, Economic and Social Union between the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany")[4] in German and came into force on 1 July 1990, with the West German Deutsche Mark replacing the East German mark as the official currency of East Germany. The Deutsche Mark had a very high reputation among the East Germans and was considered stable.[5] While the GDR transferred its financial policy sovereignty to West Germany, the West started granting subsidies for the GDR budget and social security system.[6] At the same time many West German laws came into force in the GDR. This created a suitable framework for a political union by diminishing the huge gap between the two existing political, social, and economic systems.[6]

The two original copies of the Unification Treaty signed on 31 August 1990. West German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble signed for the FRG and the East German State Secretary Günther Krause signed for the GDR.

The Volkskammer, the Parliament of East Germany, passed a resolution on 23 August 1990 declaring the accession (Beitritt) of the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany, and the extension of the field of application of the Federal Republic's Basic Law to the territory of East Germany as allowed by article 23 of the West German Basic Law, effective 3 October 1990.[7][8][9] The East German Declaration of Accession (Beitrittserklärung) to the Federal Republic as allowed by article 23 of the West German Basic Law, approved by the Volkskammer on 23 August, was formally presented by its President to the President of the West German Bundestag by means of a letter dated 25 August 1990.[10] Thus, formally, the procedure of reunification by means of the accession of East Germany to West Germany, and of East Germany's acceptance of the Basic Law already in force in West Germany, was initiated as the unilateral, sovereign decision of East Germany, as allowed by the then existing provision of article 23 of the West German Basic Law.

In the wake of that resolution of accession, the "German reunification treaty",[11][12][13] commonly known in German as "Einigungsvertrag" (Unification Treaty) or "Wiedervereinigungsvertrag" (Reunification Treaty), that had been negotiated between the two German states since 2 July 1990, was signed by representatives of the two Governments on 31 August 1990. This Treaty, officially titled Vertrag zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik über die Herstellung der Einheit Deutschlands (Treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic on the Establishment of German Unity), was approved by large majorities in the legislative chambers of both countries on 20 September 1990[14] (442–47 in the West German Bundestag and 299–80 in the East German Volkskammer). The Treaty passed the West German Bundesrat on the following day, 21 September 1990. The amendments to the Federal Republic's Basic Law that were foreseen in the Unification Treaty or necessary for its implementation were adopted by the Federal Statute of 23 September 1990, that enacted the incorporation of the Treaty as part of the Law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The said Federal Statute, containing the whole text of the Treaty and its Protocols as an annex, was published in the Bundesgesetzblatt (the official journal for the publication of the laws of the Federal Republic) on 28 September 1990.[15] In the German Democratic Republic, the constitutional law (Verfassungsgesetz) giving effect to the Treaty was also published on 28 September 1990.[16] With the adoption of the Treaty as part of its Constitution, East Germany legislated its own abolition as a State.

Under article 45 of the Treaty,[17] it entered into force according to international law on 29 September 1990, upon the exchange of notices regarding the completion of the respective internal constitutional requirements for the adoption of the treaty in both East Germany and West Germany. With that last step, and in accordance with article 1 of the Treaty, and in conformity with East Germany's Declaration of Accession presented to the Federal Republic, Germany was officially reunited at 00:00 CEST on 3 October 1990. East Germany joined the Federal Republic as the five Länder (states) of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. These states were the five original states of East Germany, but were abolished in 1952 in favour of a centralised system. As part of the 18 May treaty, the five East German states were reconstituted on 23 August. At the same time, East and West Berlin reunited into one city, which became a city-state along the lines of the existing city-states of Bremen and Hamburg. Berlin was still formally under Allied occupation (that would only be terminated later, as a result of the provisions of the Two Plus Four Treaty), but the city's administrative merger and inclusion in the Federal Republic of Germany, effective on 3 October 1990, had been greenlighted by the Allies, and were formally approved in a meeting of the Allied Control Council on 2 October 1990. In an emotional ceremony, at the stroke of midnight on 3 October 1990, the black-red-gold flag of West Germany—now the flag of a reunited Germany—was raised above the Brandenburg Gate marking the moment of German reunification.

The process chosen was one of two options implemented in the West German constitution (Basic Law) of 1949 to facilitate eventual reunification. The Basic Law stated that it was only intended for temporary use until a permanent constitution could be adopted by the German people as a whole. Via that document's (then-existing) Article 23, any new prospective Länder could adhere to the Basic Law by a simple majority vote. The initial eleven joining states of 1949 constituted the Trizone. West Berlin had been proposed as the 12th state, but was legally inhibited by Allied objections since Berlin as a whole was legally a quadripartite occupied area. Despite this, West Berlin's political affiliation was with West Germany, and in many fields it functioned de facto as if it were a component state of West Germany. In 1957 the Saar Protectorate joined West Germany under the Article 23 procedure as Saarland.

The other option was Article 146, which provided a mechanism for a permanent constitution for a reunified Germany. This route would have entailed a formal union between two German states that then would have had to, amongst other things, create a new constitution for the newly established country. However, by the spring of 1990 it was apparent that drafting a new constitution would require protracted negotiations that would open up numerous issues in West Germany. Even without this to consider, by the start of 1990 East Germany was in a state of utter collapse. In contrast, reunification under Article 23 could be implemented in as little as six months.

Ultimately, when the treaty on monetary, economic and social union was signed, it was decided to use the quicker process of Article 23. By this process, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and to join West Germany as five new states, and the area in which the Basic Law was in force simply extended to include them.[18] Thus, while legally East Germany as a whole acceded to the Federal Republic, the constituent parts of East Germany entered into the Federal Republic as separate states. The five new states held their first elections on 14 October 1990.

Nevertheless, although the Volkskammer's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic had initiated the process of reunification, the act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms, conditions and qualifications, some of which required amendments to the Basic Law itself) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990; that is through a binding agreement between the former GDR and the Federal Republic now recognising each another as separate sovereign states in international law.[19] This treaty was then voted into effect by both the Volkskammer and the Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities, effecting on the one hand, the extinction of the GDR, and on the other, the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. Hence, although the GDR declared its accession to the Federal Republic under Article 23 of the Basic Law, this did not imply its acceptance of the Basic Law as it then stood, but rather, of the Basic Law as subsequently amended in line with the Unification Treaty.

The reunification was not a merger that created a third state out of the two. Rather, West Germany effectively absorbed East Germany. Accordingly, on Unification Day, 3 October 1990, the German Democratic Republic ceased to exist, and five new Federal States on its former territory joined the Federal Republic of Germany. East and West Berlin were reunited and joined the Federal Republic as a full-fledged Federal City-State. Under this model, the Federal Republic of Germany, now enlarged to include the five states of the former German Democratic Republic plus the reunified Berlin, continued legally to exist under the same legal personality that was founded in May 1949.

While the Basic Law was modified, rather than replaced by a constitution as such, it still permits the adoption of a formal constitution by the German people at some time in the future.

The practical result of that model is that the now-expanded Federal Republic of Germany inherited the old West Germany's seats at the UN, NATO, the European Communities and other international organizations. It also continued to be a party to all the treaties the old West Germany signed prior to the moment of reunification. The Basic Law and statutory laws that were in force in the Federal Republic, as amended in accordance with the Unification Treaty, continued automatically in force, but now applied to the expanded territory. Also, the same President, Chancellor (Prime Minister) and Government of the Federal Republic remained in office, but their jurisdiction now included the newly acquired territory of the former East Germany.

To facilitate this process and to reassure other countries, fundamental changes were made to the "Basic Law" (constitution). The Preamble and Article 146 were amended, and Article 23 was replaced, but the deleted former Article 23 was applied as the constitutional model to be used for the 1990 reunification. Hence, prior to the five "New Länder" of East Germany joining, the Basic Law was amended to indicate that all parts of Germany would then be unified such that Germany could now no longer consider itself constitutionally open to further extension to include the former eastern territories of Germany, that were now Polish, Russian or Lithuanian. The changes effectively formalised the Oder–Neisse line as Germany's permanent eastern border. These amendments to the Basic Law were mandated by Article I, section 4 of the Two Plus Four Treaty.[citation needed]

German people raising the German Flag in front of the Reichstag building, 1990

To commemorate the day that marks the official unification of the former East and West Germany in 1990, 3 October has since then been the official German national holiday, the Day of German Unity (Tag der deutschen Einheit). It replaced the previous national holiday held in West Germany on 17 June commemorating the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany and the national holiday on 7 October in the GDR, that commemorated the foundation of the East German state.[6]

For decades, West Germany's allies stated their support for reunification. Israeli Prime MinisterYitzhak Shamir, who speculated that a country that "decided to kill millions of Jewish people" in the Holocaust "will try to do it again", was one of the few world leaders to publicly oppose it. As reunification became a realistic possibility, however, significant NATO and European opposition emerged in private.[20]

A poll of four countries in January 1990 found that a majority of surveyed Americans and French supported reunification, while British and Poles were more divided. 69% of Poles and 50% of French and British stated that they worried about a reunified Germany becoming "the dominant power in Europe". Those surveyed stated several concerns, including Germany again attempting to expand its territory, a revival of Nazism, and the German economy becoming too powerful. While British, French and Americans favored Germany remaining a member of NATO, a majority of Poles supported neutrality for the reunified nation.[21]

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, British Prime MinisterMargaret Thatcher told Soviet PresidentMikhail Gorbachev that neither the United Kingdom nor Western Europe wanted the reunification of Germany. Thatcher also clarified she wanted the Soviet leader to do what he could to stop it, telling Gorbachev "We do not want a united Germany".[22] Although she welcomed East German democracy, Thatcher worried that a rapid reunification might weaken Gorbachev,[23] and favoured Soviet troops staying in East Germany as long as possible to act as a counterweight to a united Germany.[20]

Thatcher, who carried in her handbag a map of Germany's 1937 borders to show others the "German problem", feared that its "national character", size and central location in Europe would cause the nation to be a "destabilizing rather than a stabilizing force in Europe".[23] In December 1989, she warned fellow European Community leaders at a Strasbourg summit that Kohl attended, "We defeated the Germans twice! And now they're back!"[24][20] Although Thatcher had stated her support for German self-determination in 1985,[23] she now argued that Germany's allies only supported reunification because they did not believe it would ever happen.[20] Thatcher favoured a transition period of five years for reunification, during which the two Germanys would remain separate states. Although she gradually softened her opposition, as late as March 1990 Thatcher summoned historians and diplomats to a seminar at Chequers[23] to ask "How dangerous are the Germans?"[24] and the French ambassador in London reported that Thatcher told him, "France and Great Britain should pull together today in the face of the German threat."[25][26]

The pace of events surprised the French, whose Foreign Ministry had concluded in October 1989 that reunification "does not appear realistic at this moment".[27] A representative of French PresidentFrançois Mitterrand reportedly told an aide to Gorbachev, "France by no means wants German reunification, although it realises that in the end it is inevitable."[22] At the Strasbourg summit, Mitterrand and Thatcher discussed the fluidity of Germany's historical borders.[20] On 20 January 1990, Mitterrand told Thatcher that a unified Germany could "make more ground than even Hitler had".[25] He predicted that "bad" Germans would reemerge,[24] who might seek to regain former German territory lost after World War II[23] and would likely dominate Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, leaving "only Romania and Bulgaria for the rest of us". The two leaders saw no way to prevent reunification, however, as "None of us was going to declare war on Germany".[20] Mitterrand recognized before Thatcher that reunification was inevitable and adjusted his views accordingly; unlike her, he was hopeful that participation in a single currency[23] and other European institutions could control a united Germany. Mitterrand still wanted Thatcher to publicly oppose unification, however, to obtain more concessions from Germany.[24]

Ireland's Taoiseach, Charles Haughey supported German Reunification and he took advantage of Ireland's presidency of the European Economic Community by calling for an extraordinary European summit in Dublin in April 1990 to calm fears held by fellow members of the EEC.[28][29][30] Haughey saw similarities between Ireland and Germany and cited "I have expressed a personal view that coming as we do from a country which is also divided many of us would have sympathy with any wish of the people of the two German States for unification".[31]Der Spiegel later described other European leaders' opinion of reunification at the time as "icy". Italy's Giulio Andreotti warned against a revival of "pan-Germanism" and joked "I love Germany so much that I prefer to see two of them", and the Netherlands' Ruud Lubbers questioned the German right to self-determination. They shared Britain and France's concerns over a return to German militarism and the economic power of a reunified nation. The consensus opinion was that reunification, if it must occur, should not occur until at least 1995 and preferably much later.[20]

The United States – and President George H. W. Bush – recognized that Germany went through a long democratic transition. It was a good friend, it was a member of NATO. Any issues that existed in 1945, it seemed perfectly reasonable to lay them to rest. For us, the question wasn't should Germany unify? It was how and under what circumstances? We had no concern about a resurgent Germany...

The victors of World War II — France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, comprising the Four-Power Authorities—retained authority over Berlin, such as control over air travel and its political status. From the onset, the Soviet Union sought to use reunification as a way to push Germany out of NATO into neutrality, removing nuclear weapons from its territory. However, West Germany misinterpreted a 21 November 1989 diplomatic message on the topic to mean that the Soviet leadership already anticipated reunification only two weeks after the Wall's collapse. This belief, and the worry that his rival Genscher might act first, encouraged Kohl on 28 November to announce a detailed "Ten Point Program for Overcoming the Division of Germany and Europe". While his speech was very popular within West Germany, it caused concern among other European governments, with whom he had not discussed the plan.[20][33]

The Americans did not share the Europeans' and Russians' historical fears over German expansionism; Condoleezza Rice later recalled, "Any issues that existed in 1945, it seemed perfectly reasonable to lay them to rest".[32] They wished to ensure, however, that Germany would stay within NATO. In December 1989, the administration of President George H. W. Bush made a united Germany's continued NATO membership a requirement for supporting reunification. Kohl agreed, although less than 20% of West Germans supported remaining within NATO. Kohl also wished to avoid a neutral Germany, as he believed that would destroy NATO, cause the United States and Canada to leave Europe, and cause Britain and France to form an anti-German alliance. The United States increased its support of Kohl's policies, as it feared that otherwise Oskar Lafontaine, a critic of NATO, might become Chancellor.[20]

Horst Teltschik, Kohl's foreign policy advisor, later recalled that Germany would have paid "100 billion deutschmarks" if the Soviets demanded it. The USSR did not make such great demands, however, with Gorbachev stating in February 1990 that "The Germans must decide for themselves what path they choose to follow". In May 1990 he repeated his remark in the context of NATO membership while meeting Bush, amazing both the Americans and Germans.[20] This removed the last significant roadblock to Germany being free to choose its international alignments, though Kohl made no secret that he intended for the reunified Germany to inherit West Germany's seats in NATO and the EC.

During a NATO–Warsaw Pact conference in Ottawa, Canada, Genscher persuaded the four powers to treat the two Germanys as equals instead of defeated junior partners, and for the six nations to negotiate alone. Although the Dutch, Italians, Spanish, and other NATO powers opposed such a structure, which meant that the alliance's boundaries would change without their participation, the six nations began negotiations in March 1990. After Gorbachev's May agreement on German NATO membership, the Soviets further agreed that Germany would be treated as an ordinary NATO country, with the exception that former East German territory would not have foreign NATO troops or nuclear weapons. In exchange, Kohl agreed to reduce the sizes of the militaries of both West and East Germany, renounce weapons of mass destruction, and accept the postwar Oder–Neisse line as Germany's eastern border. In addition, Germany agreed to pay about 55 billion deutschmarks to the Soviet Union in gifts and loans, the equivalent of eight days of the West German GDP.[20]

The British insisted to the end, against Soviet opposition, that NATO be allowed to hold manoevres in the former East Germany. After the Americans intervened,[20] both the UK and France ratified the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in September 1990, thus finalizing the reunification for purposes of international law. Thatcher later wrote that her opposition to reunification had been an "unambiguous failure".[23]

German sovereignty, confirmation of borders, withdrawal of the Allied Forces[edit]

Many Trabants were abandoned after 1989 (this one photographed in Leipzig, 1990)

On 14 November 1990, Germany and Poland, signed the German–Polish Border Treaty, finalizing Germany's boundaries as permanent along the Oder–Neisse line, and thus, renouncing any claims to Silesia, East Brandenburg, Farther Pomerania, and the southern area of the former province of East Prussia.[34] The subsequent German-Polish Treaty of Good Neighbourship that supplemented the Border Treaty also granted certain rights for political minorities on either side of the border.[35] The following month, the first all-German free elections since 1932 were held, resulting in an increased majority for the coalition government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

On 15 March 1991, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany—that had been signed in Moscow back on 12 September 1990 by the two German states that then existed (East and West Germany) on one side, and by the four principal Allied powers (the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and the United States) on the other—entered into force, having been ratified by the Federal Republic of Germany (after the unification, as the united Germany) and by the four Allied nations. The entry into force of that treaty (also known as the "Two Plus Four Treaty", in reference to the two German states and four Allied nations that signed it) put an end to the then-remaining limitations on German sovereignty that resulted from the post World War II arrangements.

Even prior to the ratification of the Treaty, the operation of all quadripartite Allied institutions in Germany was suspended, with effect from the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990 and pending the final ratification of the Two Plus Four Treaty, pursuant to a declaration signed in New York on 1 October 1990 by the foreign ministers of the four Allied Powers, that was witnessed by ministers of the two German states then in existence, and that was appended text of the Two Plus Four Treaty.[36]

In accordance with Article 9 of the Treaty, it entered into force as soon as all ratifications were deposited with the Government of Germany. The last party to ratify the treaty was the Soviet Union, that deposited its instrument of ratification on 15 March 1991. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR only gave its approval to the ratification of the treaty on 4 March 1991, after a hefty debate.

Under that treaty (which should not be confused with the Unification Treaty that was signed only between the two German states), the last Allied forces still present in Germany left in 1994, in accordance with article 4 of the treaty, that set 31 December 1994 as the deadline for the withdrawal of the remaining Allied forces. The bulk of Russian ground forces left Germany on 25 June 1994 with a military parade of the 6th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade in Berlin. The withdrawal of the last Russian troops (the Russian Army's Western Group of Forces) was completed on 31 August 1994, and the event was marked by a military ceremony in the Treptow Park in Berlin, with the presence of Russian President Yeltsin and German Chancellor Kohl.[37] Although the bulk of the British, American, and French Forces had left Germany even before the departure of the Russians, the ceremony marking the withdrawal of the remaining Forces of the Western Allies was the last to take place: on 8 September 1994,[38] a Farewell Ceremony in the courtyard of the Charlottenburg Palace, with the presence of British Prime Minister John Major, American Secretary of State Warren Cristopher, French President François Mitterrand, and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, marked the withdrawal of the British, American and French Occupation Forces from Berlin, and the termination of the Allied occupation in Germany.[39] Thus, the removal of the Allied presence took place a few months before the final deadline.

As for the German–Polish Border Treaty, it was approved by the Polish Sejm on 26 November 1991 and the German Bundestag on 16 December 1991, and entered into force with the exchange of the instruments of ratification on 16 January 1992. The confirmation of the border between Germany and Poland was required of Germany by the Allied Powers in the Two Plus Four Treaty.

The subsequent economic restructuring and reconstruction of eastern Germany resulted in significant costs, especially for western Germany, which paid large sums of money in the form of the Solidaritätszuschlag (Solidarity Surcharge) in order to rebuild the east German infrastructure. Peer Steinbrück is quoted as saying in a 2011 interview, "Over a period of 20 years, German reunification has cost 2 trillion euros, or an average of 100 billion euros a year. So, we have to ask ourselves 'Aren't we willing to pay a tenth of that over several years for Europe's unity?'"[40]

Vast differences between the former East Germany and West Germany in lifestyle, wealth, political beliefs, and other matters remain, and it is therefore still common to speak of eastern and western Germany distinctly. The eastern German economy has struggled since unification, and large subsidies are still transferred from west to east. The former East Germany area has often been compared to the underdeveloped Southern Italy and the Southern United States during Reconstruction after the American Civil War. While the East German economy has recovered recently, the differences between East and West remain present.[41][42]

Politicians and scholars have frequently called for a process of "inner reunification" of the two countries and asked whether there is "inner unification or continued separation".[43] "The process of German unity has not ended yet", proclaimed Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, in 2009.[44] Nevertheless, the question of this "inner reunification" has been widely discussed in the German public, politically, economically, culturally, and also constitutionally since 1989.

Politically, since the fall of the Wall, the successor party of the former East German socialist state party has become a major force in German politics. It was renamed PDS, and, later, merged with the Western leftist party WASG to form the party The Left (Die Linke).

Constitutionally, the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), the West German constitution, provided two pathways for a unification. The first was the implementation of a new all-German constitution, safeguarded by a popular referendum. Actually, this was the original idea of the "Grundgesetz" in 1949: it was named a "basic law" instead of a "constitution" because it was considered provisional.[45] The second way was more technical: the implementation of the constitution in the East, using a paragraph originally designed for the West German states (Bundesländer) in case of internal re-organization like the merger of two states. While this latter option was chosen as the most feasible one, the first option was partly regarded as a means to foster the "inner reunification".[46][47]

Placard found in all roads between Western and Eastern Germany that were blocked during division. Text translated as: "Here, Germany and Europe were divided until 10 December 1989 at 10:15 am". The date and time vary according to the actual moment when a particular crossing was opened.

The economic reconstruction of former Eastern Germany following the reunification required large amounts of public funding which turned some areas into boom regions, although overall unemployment remains higher than in the former West.[49] Unemployment was part of a process of deindustrialization starting rapidly after 1990. Causes for this process are disputed in political conflicts up to the present day. Most times bureaucracy and lack of efficiency of the East German economy are highlighted and the de-industrialization seen as inevitable outcome of the "Wende". But many East German critics point out that it was the shock-therapy style of privatization which did not leave room for East German enterprises to adapt, and that alternatives like a slow transition had been possible.[50]

Reunification did, however, lead to a large rise in the average standard of living in former East Germany and a stagnation in the West as $2 trillion in public spending was transferred East.[51] Between 1990 and 1995, gross wages in the east rose from 35% to 74% of western levels, while pensions rose from 40% to 79%.[52] Unemployment reached double the western level as well. West German cities close to the new border of East and West Germany experienced a disproportionate loss of market access relative to other West German cities which were not as greatly affected by the reunification of East Germany.[53]

In terms of media usage and reception, the country remains partially divided especially among the older generations. Mentality gaps between East and West persist, but so does sympathy.[44] Additionally, the integration between Easterners and Westerners is not happening on as large a scale as was expected.[54][55] Young people have on average very little knowledge of the former East Germany.[56] Some people in Eastern Germany engage in "Ostalgie", which is a certain nostalgia for the time before the wall came down.[57]

Crowds at the Brandenburg Gate on 1 December 1989. The entrance to the Western side was still not opened.

While the fall of the Berlin Wall had broad economic, political and social impacts globally, it also had significant consequence for the local urban environment. In fact, the events of 9 November 1989 saw East Berlin and West Berlin, two halves of a single city that had ignored one another for the better part of 40 years, finally "in confrontation with one another".[58] As expressed by Grésillon[59] "the fall of the Berlin Wall [marked] the end of 40 years of divided political, economic and cultural histories" and was "accompanied by a strong belief that [the city] was now back on its 'natural' way to become again a major metropolis"[60]

In the context of urban planning, in addition to a wealth of new opportunity and the symbolism of two former independent nations being re-joined, the reunification of Berlin presented numerous challenges. The city underwent massive redevelopment, involving the political, economic and cultural environment of both East and West Berlin. However, the "scar" left by the Wall, which ran directly through the very heart of the city[61] had consequences for the urban environment that planning still needs to address. Despite planning efforts, significant disparity between East and West remain.

The reunification of Berlin presented legal, political and technical challenges for the urban environment. The political division and physical separation of the city for more than 30 years saw the East and the West develop their own distinct urban forms, with many of these differences still visible to this day.[62] East and West Berlin were directed by two separate political and urban agendas. East Berlin developed a mono-centric structure with lower level density and a functional mix in the city's core, while West Berlin was poly-centric in nature, with a high-density, multi-functional city centre.[63] The two political systems allocated funds to post-war reconstruction differently, based on political priorities,[64] and this had consequences for the reunification of the city. West Berlin had received considerably more financial assistance for reconstruction and refurbishment.[64] There was considerable disparity in the general condition of many of the buildings; at the time of reunification, East Berlin still contained many leveled areas, which were previous sites of destroyed buildings from World War II, as well as damaged buildings that had not been repaired.[64] An immediate challenge facing the reunified city was the need for physical connectivity between the East and the West, specifically the organisation of infrastructure.[64] In the period following World War II, approximately half of the railway lines were removed in East Berlin.[65]

As urban planning in Germany is the responsibility of city government,[64] the integration of East and West Berlin was in part complicated by the fact that the existing planning frameworks became obsolete with the fall of the Wall.[66] Prior to the reunification of the city, the Land Use Plan of 1988 and General Development Plan of 1980 defined the spatial planning criteria for West and East Berlin, respectively.[66] Although these existing frameworks were in place before reunification, after the fall of the Wall there was a need to develop new instruments in order to facilitate the spatial and economic development of the re-unified city. The first Land Use Plan following reunification was ultimately enacted in 1994.[66] The urban development policy of reunified Berlin, termed "Critical Reconstruction", aimed to facilitate urban diversity by supporting a mixture of land functions.[60] This policy directed the urban planning strategy for the reunified city. A "Critical Reconstruction" policy agenda was to redefine Berlin's urban identity through its pre-war and pre-Nazi legacy. Elements of "Critical Reconstruction" were also reflected in the overall strategic planning document for downtown Berlin, entitled "Inner City Planning Framework".[60]

Reunification policy emphasised restoration of the traditional Berlin landscape. To this effect, the policy excluded the "legacy of socialist East Berlin and notably of divided Berlin from the new urban identity".[60] Ultimately, following the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic on 3 October 1990, all planning projects under the socialist regime were abandoned.[67] Vacant lots, open areas and empty fields in East Berlin were subject to redevelopment, in addition to space previously occupied by the Wall and associated buffering zone.[64] Many of these sites were positioned in central, strategic locations of the reunified city. The removal of the Wall saw the city's spatial structure reoriented.[66]

East German Prime Minister Hans Modrow, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and mayor of West Berlin Walter Momper among other figures take part in the official opening of the Brandenburg Gate on 22 December 1989.

Berlin's urban organisation experienced significant upheaval following the physical and metaphorical collapse of the Wall, as the city sought to "re-invent itself as a 'Western' metropolis".[60]

Redevelopment of vacant lots, open areas and empty fields as well as space previously occupied by the Wall and associated buffering zone[64] were based on land use priorities as reflected in "Critical Reconstruction" policies. Green space and recreational areas were allocated 38% of freed land; 6% of freed land was dedicated to mass-transit systems to address transport inadequacies.[64]

Reunification initiatives also included construction of major office and commercial projects, as well as the renovation of housing estates in East Berlin.

Another key priority was reestablishing Berlin as the capital of Germany, and this required buildings to serve government needs, including the "redevelopment of sites for scores of foreign embassies".[64]

With respect to redefining the city's identity, emphasis was placed on restoring Berlin's traditional landscape. "Critical Reconstruction" policies sought to disassociate the city's identity from its Nazi and socialist legacy, though some remnants were preserved, with walkways and bicycle paths established along the border strip to preserve the memory of the Wall.[64] In the centre of East Berlin much of the modernist heritage of the East German state was gradually removed.[67] Reunification saw the removal of politically motivated street names and monuments in the East in an attempt to reduce the socialist legacy from the face of East Berlin.[60]

Immediately following the fall of the Wall, Berlin experienced a boom in the construction industry.[62] Redevelopment initiatives saw Berlin turn into one of the largest construction sites in the world through the 1990s and early 2000s.[66]

The fall of the Berlin Wall also had economic consequences. Two German systems covering distinctly divergent degrees of economic opportunity suddenly came into intimate contact.[68] Despite development of sites for commercial purposes, Berlin struggled to compete in economic terms with key West German centres such as Stuttgart and Düsseldorf.[69][70] The intensive building activity directed by planning policy resulted in the over-expansion of office space, "with a high level of vacancies in spite of the move of most administrations and government agencies from Bonn".[71][72]

Berlin was marred by disjointed economic restructuring, associated with massive deindustrialisation.[69][70] Economist Hartwich asserts that while the East undoubtedly improved economically, it was "at a much slower pace than [then Chancellor Helmut] Kohl had predicted".[73] Wealth and income inequality between former East and West Germany continues today even after reunification. On average adults in the former West Germany have assets worth 94,000 euros as compared to the adults in the former communist East Germany which have just over 40,000 euros in assets.[74]

Facilitation of economic development through planning measures failed to close the disparity between East and West, not only in terms of the economic opportunity but also housing conditions and transport options.[62] Tölle states that "the initial euphoria about having become one unified people again was increasingly replaced by a growing sense of difference between Easterners ("Ossis") and Westerners ("Wessis")"[75] The fall of the Wall also instigated immediate cultural change.[59] The first consequence was the closure in East Berlin of politically oriented cultural institutions.[59]

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the factors described above led to mass migration from East Berlin and East Germany, producing a large labour supply shock in the West.[68] Emigration from the East, totaling 870,000 people between 1989 and 1992 alone,[76] led to worse employment outcomes for the least-educated workers, for blue-collar workers, for men and for foreign nationals.[68]

At the close of the century, it became evident that despite significant investment and planning, Berlin was yet to retake "its seat between the European Global Cities of London and Paris."[60] Yet ultimately, the disparity between East and West portions of Berlin has led to the city achieving a new urban identity.

A number of locales of East Berlin, characterised by dwellings of in-between use of abandoned space for little to no rent, have become the focal point and foundation of Berlin's burgeoning creative activities.[77] According to Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, "the best that Berlin has to offer, its unique creativity. Creativity is Berlin's future."[78] Overall, the Berlin government's engagement in creativity is strongly centered on marketing and promotional initiatives instead of creative production.[79]

Creativity has been the catalyst for the city's "thriving music scene, active nightlife, and bustling street scene"[80] all of which have become important attractions for the German capital. The industry is a key component of the city's economic make-up with more than 10% of all Berlin residents employed in cultural sectors.[81]

Germany was not the only state that had been separated through the aftermaths of World War II. For example, Korea as well as Vietnam have been separated through the occupation of "Western-Capitalistic" and "Eastern-Communistic" forces, after the defeat of the Japanese Empire. Both countries suffered severely from this separation in the Korean War (1950–53) and the Vietnam War (1955–75) respectively, which caused heavy economic and civilian damage.[82][83] However, German separation did not result in another war. Moreover, Germany is the only one of these countries that has managed to achieve a peaceful reunification. For instance, Vietnam achieved reunification only at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, while North and South Korea still struggle with high political tensions and huge economic disparities, making a possible reunification an enormous challenge.[84]

^The territory of the League of Nations mandate of the Free City of Danzig, annexed by Poland in 1945 and comprising the city of Gdańsk (Danzig) and a number of neighbouring cities and municipalities, had never been claimed by any official side, because West Germany followed the legal position of Germany in its borders of 1937, thus before any Nazi annexations.

^Bruce W. Bennett (2013). Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse (Report). RAND Corporation. p. XV. There is a reasonable probability that North Korean totalitarianism will end in the foreseeable future, with the very strong likelihood that this end will be accompanied by considerable violence and upheaval.

1.
Unification of Germany
–
The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco-Prussian War. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which had included more than 500 independent states, was dissolved when Emperor Francis II abdicated during the War of the Third Coalition. Economically, the creation of the Prussian Zollverein in 1818, and its subsequent expansion to other states of the German Confederation. Emerging modes of transportation facilitated business and recreational travel, leading to contact, the model of diplomatic spheres of influence resulting from the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15 after the Napoleonic Wars endorsed Austrian dominance in Central Europe. The negotiators at Vienna took no account of Prussias growing strength within and among the German states and this German dualism presented two solutions to the problem of unification, Kleindeutsche Lösung, the small Germany solution, or Großdeutsche Lösung, the greater Germany solution. Reaction to Danish and French nationalism provided foci for expressions of German unity, military successes—especially those of Prussia—in three regional wars generated enthusiasm and pride that politicians could harness to promote unification. This experience echoed the memory of mutual accomplishment in the Napoleonic Wars, by establishing a Germany without Austria, the political and administrative unification in 1871 at least temporarily solved the problem of dualism. 1797, The French First Republic annexed the Left Bank of the Rhine as a result of the War of the First Coalition,1802, Previous annexations by France confirmed following its victory in the War of the Second Coalition. 1804, Francis I of Austria declared the new Austrian Empire as a reaction to Napoleon Bonapartes proclamation of the First French Empire in 1804. 1806, As a result of the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon I annexed some territories East of the Rhine,1807, Prussia lost one half of its territory following the War of the Fourth Coalition. 1815, After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna reinstated the Germanic states into the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire,1834, The Prussian-led custom union evolved into the Zollverein that included almost all Confederation states except the Austrian Empire. 1848, Revolts across the German Confederation, such as in Berlin, Dresden and Frankfurt, in the meantime, the Frankfurt Parliament was set up in 1848 and attempted to proclaim a united Germany, but this was refused by William IV. The question of a united Germany under the Kleindeutsch solution or the so-called Großdeutsch began to surface,1864, The Danish-Prussian War started as Prussia protested against Danish incorporation of Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark. The Austrian Empire was deliberately drawn into war by Otto von Bismarck. The Austro-Prussian victory led to Schleswig, the part, being governed by Prussia and Holstein. 1866, Bismarck accused the Austrian Empire of stirring up troubles in Prussian-held Schleswig, Prussian troops drove into Austrian-held Holstein and took control of the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein. Austria declared war on Prussia and, after fighting the Austro-Prussian War, was swiftly defeated, Napoleon III declared war against Prussia

2.
East Germany
–
East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt

3.
West Germany
–
West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany

4.
West Berlin
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West Berlin was an enclave which comprised the western part of the city of Berlin during the Cold War. It was formally controlled by the Western Allies and formed a de facto part of West Germany, and was entirely surrounded by the Soviet-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great significance during the Cold War, as it was widely considered by westerners as an island of freedom. A wealthy city, West Berlin was noted for its liberal and cosmopolitan character. With about two million inhabitants, West Berlin had the biggest population of any city in Cold War Germany and it was 100 miles east of the Inner German border and only accessible by land from West Germany by narrow rail and highway corridors. It consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors established in 1945 and was de facto part of West Germany and it had a special and unique legal status because its administration was formally conducted by the Western Allies. East Berlin, de jure occupied and administered by the Soviet Union, was the de facto capital of East Germany, the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, physically divided West Berlin from its East German surroundings until it fell in 1989. The Potsdam Agreement established the framework for the occupation of Germany in the wake of World War II. The territory of Germany, as it existed in 1937, would be reduced by most of Eastern Germany thus creating the former territories of Germany. The remaining territory would be divided into four zones, each administered by one of the allied countries, according to the agreement, the occupation of Berlin would end only as a result of a quadripartite agreement. The Western Allies were guaranteed three air corridors to their sectors of Berlin, and the Soviets also informally allowed road, at first, this arrangement was intended to be only a temporary administrative structure, with all parties declaring that Germany and Berlin would soon be reunited. However, as the relations between the allies and the Soviet Union soured and the Cold War began, the joint administration of Germany. Soon, Soviet-occupied Berlin and western-occupied Berlin had separate city administrations, in 1948, the Soviets tried to force the Western Allies out of Berlin by imposing a land blockade on the western sectors—the Berlin Blockade. The West responded by using its air corridors for supplying their part of the city with food, in May 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade, and West Berlin as a separate city with its own jurisdiction was maintained. Following the Berlin Blockade, normal contacts between East and West Berlin resumed, however, in cases this proved only temporary. In 1952, the East German government began sealing its borders, as a direct result the electrical grids were separated and phone lines were cut. However, the culmination of the schism did not occur until 1961 with the construction of the Berlin Wall. From the legal theory followed by the Western Allies, the occupation of most of Germany ended in 1949 with the declaration of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic

5.
Brandenburg Gate
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The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, and one of the best-known landmarks of Germany. It is built on the site of a city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. It is located in the part of the city centre of Berlin within Mitte, at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße. One block to the stands the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament. The gate is the entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace, having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin. During the post-war Partition of Germany, the gate was isolated, the area around the gate was featured most prominently in the media coverage of the tearing down of the wall in 1989, and the subsequent German reunification in 1990. Georgen Tor, Stralower Tor, Cöpenicker Tor, Neues Tor, relative peace, a policy of religious tolerance, and status as capital of the Kingdom of Prussia facilitated the growth of the city. The Brandenburg Gate was not part of the old fortifications, but one of 18 gates within the Berlin Customs Wall, erected in the 1730s, including the old fortified city, the new gate was commissioned by Frederick William II of Prussia to represent peace. The gate consists of twelve Doric columns, six to each side, citizens originally were allowed to use only the outermost two on each side. Atop the gate is a Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, the new gate was originally named the Peace Gate and the goddess is Eirene, the goddess of peace. The gates design is based upon the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, the gate was the first element of Athens on the River Spree by architect Langhans. The Brandenburg Gate has played different political roles in German history, after the 1806 Prussian defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon was the first to use the Brandenburg Gate for a triumphal procession, and took its Quadriga to Paris. After Napoleons defeat in 1814 and the Prussian occupation of Paris by General Ernst von Pfuel, the Quadriga faces east, as it did when it was originally installed in 1793. Only the royal family was allowed to pass through the archway, as well as members of the Pfuel family. The Kaiser granted this honour to the family in gratitude to Ernst von Pfuel, in addition, the central archway was also used by the coaches of ambassadors on the single occasion of their presenting their letters of credence to council. When the Nazis ascended to power, they used the gate as a party symbol, the gate survived World War II and was one of the damaged structures still standing in the Pariser Platz ruins in 1945. The gate was damaged with holes in the columns from bullets

6.
Graffiti
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Graffiti are writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a wall or other surface, often within public view. Graffiti range from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and they have existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, in modern times, paint and marker pens have become the most commonly used graffiti materials. In most countries, marking or painting property without the property owners permission is considered defacement and vandalism, Graffiti may also express underlying social and political messages and a whole genre of artistic expression is based upon spray paint graffiti styles. Within hip hop culture, graffiti have evolved alongside hip hop music, b-boying, unrelated to hip-hop graffiti, gangs use their own form of graffiti to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Controversies that surround graffiti continue to create disagreement amongst city officials, law enforcement, both graffiti and its occasional singular form graffito are from the Italian word graffiato. Graffiti is applied in art history to works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface, a related term is sgraffito, which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was used by potters who would glaze their wares. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, the word originates from Greek γράφειν — graphein — meaning to write. The term graffiti referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, use of the word has evolved to include any graphics applied to surfaces in a manner that constitutes vandalism. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD, the first known example of modern style graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. Local guides say it is an advertisement for prostitution, located near a mosaic and stone walkway, the graffiti shows a handprint that vaguely resembles a heart, along with a footprint and a number. This is believed to indicate that a brothel was nearby, with the handprint symbolizing payment, the ancient Romans carved graffiti on walls and monuments, examples of which also survive in Egypt. Graffiti in the world had different connotations than they carry in todays society concerning content. One inscription gives the address of a woman named Novellia Primigenia of Nuceria, another shows a phallus accompanied by the text, mansueta tene. Etched on the surface of the Mirror Wall, they contain pieces of prose, poetry, the majority of these visitors appear to have been from the elite of society, royalty, officials, professions, and clergy. There were also soldiers, archers, and even some metalworkers, the topics range from love to satire, curses, wit, and lament. Many demonstrate a high level of literacy and a deep appreciation of art. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there, one reads, Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems

7.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln

8.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed

9.
Grundgesetz
–
The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is the constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Basic Law was approved on 8 May 1949 in Bonn and its original field of application comprised the states of the Trizone that were initially included in the then West German Federal Republic of Germany, but not West Berlin. As part of the Two Plus Four Agreement of 1990 between the two parts of Germany and all four Allied Powers, a series of amendments were agreed to be implemented. In the subsequent Unification Treaty of 1990, this amended Basic Law was adopted as the constitution for a united Germany, the German word Grundgesetz may be translated as either Basic Law or Fundamental Law. Nevertheless, although the amended Basic Law was finally to be approved in 1990 by the full Allied Powers, the authors of the Basic Law sought to ensure that a potential dictator would never again have the chance to come into power in the country. Although some of the Basic Law is based on the Weimar republic constitution, Fundamental rights are guaranteed in Germany by the Federal Constitution and in some state constitutions. In the Basic Law, most fundamental rights are guaranteed in the first section of the same name and they are subjective public rights with constitutional rank which bind all authorities of the state. Hence, these rights are called the rights identical to fundamental rights, since initially the Basic Law did not apply for all of Germany, its legal provisions were only valid in its field of application. This legal term was used in West German legislation when West German laws did not apply to the entirety of Germany. Article 23 of the Basic Law provided other de jure German states, initially not included in the field of application of the Basic Law, therefore, although the Basic Law was considered provisional, it allowed more parts of Germany to join its field of application. In other parts of Germany it shall be put into force on their accession, the Saar held no separate referendum on its accession. The Communist regime in East Germany fell in 1990, East Germanys declaration of accession included the East German territories into the field of application of the Basic Law. After the changes of the Basic Law, mostly pertaining to the accession in 1990, the negotiations ended with the conclusion that a democratic and federal West German state was to be established. These papers—amongst other points—summoned the Ministerpräsidenten to arrange a constitutional assembly, with the specific request of a federal structure of a future German state the Western Powers followed German constitutional tradition since the foundation of the Reich in 1871. The Ministerpräsidenten were reluctant to fulfill what was expected from them, a few days later they convened a conference of their own on Rittersturz ridge near Koblenz. They decided that any of the Frankfurt requirements should only be implemented in a formally provisional way, so the constitutional assembly was to be called Parlamentarischer Rat and the constitution given the name of Grundgesetz instead of calling it a constitution. The Ministerpräsidenten prevailed and the Western Powers gave in concerning this highly symbolic question, the draft was prepared at the preliminary Herrenchiemsee convention on the Herreninsel in the Chiemsee, a lake in southeastern Bavaria. The delegates at the Convention were appointed by the leaders of the newly formed Länder, on 1 September 1948 the Parlamentarischer Rat began working on the exact wording of the Grundgesetz

10.
German Unity Day
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The Day of German Unity is the national day of Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990, when the goal of a united Germany that originated in the middle of the 19th century, was fulfilled again, therefore, the name addresses neither the re-union nor the union, but the unity of Germany. The Day of German Unity on 3 October has been the German national holiday since 1990, however,9 November was also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led pogroms against Jews in 1938, so the day was considered inappropriate as a national holiday. Therefore,3 October 1990, the day of the reunification, was chosen instead and replaced the Day of German Unity on 17 June. Before 1871, in the area where the state of Germany now exists, different kingdoms. After the unification of Germany, and the Founding of the Empire 1871, the Sedantag was, however, celebrated every year on 2 September, recalling the decisive victory in the Franco-Prussian War on 2 September 1870. After the founding of the Empire in 1871, there were calls for a national holiday, until 1873, the Sedantag was moved to 18 January or the day of the Frankfurt Treaty. The Sedantag would soon also be celebrated at the universities and in many German cities and it never occurred to them to think about Empire Parade or Emperors Birthday. Some Culture Ministers of the states, especially in Prussia, decided that the Sedantag would be a festival in schools. Upon many suggestions, the date of the Emperors proclamation on 18 January would be established as day of remembrance. Emperor Wilhelm I declined this, This was also the day of the first Prussian coronation of the king, on 31 July 1919, the Weimar Constitution would be accepted in its form by the Weimar National Congress. In memorial of this Hour of birth of democracy, the 11 August was created as Constitution Day, because the President of the Empire, Friedrich Ebert, shortly after the Nazis took power in 1933, May Day was established as a national holiday in the German Reich. It was already celebrated as a Day of the Labor Movement since 1890, immediately after the establishment of the holiday in 1933, the Nazis banned trade unions on 2 May 1933 and occupied their buildings as offices for the Nazi Movement. On 1 March 1939, Hitler declared 9 November as the Memorial Day for the movement as the national holiday. From 1954 to 1990,17 June was a holiday in the Federal Republic of Germany to commemorate the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. Since 1963, it was proclaimed by the President of the Federal Republic as National Day of Memorial of the German People, therefore, in the year 1990, the Day of German Unity was celebrated twice. In East Germany, the Founding Day in 1949 would be celebrated on 7 October as Day of the Republic, the motive for setting the date of 3 October as the possible Day of Unity was decided by the Volkskammer on the impending economical and political collapse of the GDR. The Helsinki Conference was set for 2 October, at which the ministers would be informed of the results of the Two-plus-Four talks

11.
Iron Curtain
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The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. A term symbolizing the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, on the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union. The most notable border was marked by the Berlin Wall and its Checkpoint Charlie, the events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in discontent in Poland, and continued in Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Romania became the only communist state in Europe to overthrow its government with violence. The use of the iron curtain as a metaphor for strict separation goes back at least as far as the early 19th century. It originally referred to fireproof curtains in theaters, various usages of the term iron curtain pre-date Churchills use of the phrase. The term iron curtain has since been used metaphorically in two different senses - firstly to denote the end of an era and secondly to denote a closed geopolitical border. The source of these metaphors can refer to either the safety curtain deployed in theatres or to roller shutters used to secure commercial premises. The first metaphorical usage of iron curtain, in the sense of an end of an era, perhaps should be attributed to British author Arthur Machen, who used the term in his 1895 novel The Three Impostors. The door clanged behind me with the noise of thunder, and I felt that an iron curtain had fallen on the passage of my life. Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians used the term Iron Curtain in the context of World War I to describe the situation between Belgium and Germany in 1914. The passage runs, With clanging, creaking, and squeaking, time to put on your fur coats and go home. We looked around, but the fur coats and homes were missing, chesterton used the phrase in a 1924 essay in The Illustrated London News. Chesterton, while defending Distributism, refers to that iron curtain of industrialism that has cut us off not only from our neighbours condition, how, a moment before the iron curtain was wrung down on it, did the German political stage appear. All German theatres had to install an iron curtain as a precaution to prevent the possibility of fire spreading from the stage to the rest of the theatre. Such fires were common because the decor often was very flammable. In case of fire, a wall would separate the stage from the theatre. Douglas Reed used this metaphor in his book Disgrace Abounding, The bitter strife had only hidden by the iron safety-curtain of the Kings dictatorship

12.
East Germans
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies culturally in Central Germany, was a state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Until 1989, the GDR was governed by the Socialist Unity Party, though other parties participated in its alliance organisation. The economy was centrally planned, and increasingly state-owned, prices of basic goods and services were set by central government planners, rather than rising and falling through supply and demand. Although the GDR had to pay war reparations to the USSR. Nonetheless it did not match the growth of West Germany. Emigration to the West was a significant problem—as many of the emigrants were well-educated young people, the government fortified its western borders and, in 1961, built the Berlin Wall. Many people attempting to flee were killed by guards or booby traps. In 1989, numerous social and political forces in the GDR and abroad led to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the following year open elections were held, and international negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty on the status and borders of Germany. The GDR was dissolved and Germany was unified on 3 October 1990, internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin known as East Berlin which was also administered as the states de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States, United Kingdom and France known collectively as West Berlin. The three sectors occupied by the Western nations were sealed off from the rest of the GDR by the Berlin Wall from its construction in 1961 until it was brought down in 1989, the official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik, usually abbreviated to DDR. West Germans, the media and statesmen purposely avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone, Sowjetische Besatzungszone. The centre of power in East Berlin was referred to as Pankow. Over time, however, the abbreviation DDR was also used colloquially by West Germans. However, this use was not always consistent, for example, before World War II, Ostdeutschland was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe, as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt

13.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province

14.
Peaceful Revolution
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In addition to the Soviet Union’s shift in foreign policy – part of its glasnost and perestroika reforms hastened the destabilization of the SED and the success of the counter revolution. Through a change in leadership and a willingness to talk with opponents, however, due to the continued political instability and the threat of national bankruptcy, control of the situation increasingly lay with the West German government under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. After a sweeping election win for the “Alliance for Germany” coalition, upon becoming elected General Secretary of the Soviet Union in 1985, Gorbachev abolished the Soviet claim of leadership over the internal developments of the socialist brother lands. With his economic and sociopolitical reform program as well as his disarmament initiatives, as the weak outpost of the Iron Curtain, the GDR profited from both a unique economic relationship with the Soviet Union and a relatively stable supply situation. It was notably the only Warsaw Pact member to have numbers of Soviet troops permanently stationed on its territory. However, Gorbachevs reforms soured relations between the GDR leadership and the Soviet Union as the SED showed an increasingly clear dissociation from these policies, information about the new developments in the Soviet Union was also placed under stronger censorship. This provoked a wave of protests from those in the GDR population, at the turn of the year 1988/89 GDR leader Erich Honecker began speaking of socialism in the colours of the GDR to emphasize the countries differences in policy. Since the start of the 1970s, Honecker had led social policies built on such as wage and pension increases. In 1981 a reduction in Soviet oil deliveries at special rates brought the GDRs planned economy into difficulties, by the end of the 1980s GDR productivity in comparison to the FRG lay at only 30%. It was attempted at high cost to become a producer of micro electronics, even the official presentation in September 1988 of a 1-Megabit-Speicher that was firstly developed in the GDR, couldnt mask the slow speed of development in comparison with the West. Outdated production facilities and methods were not only inefficient but also caused environmental damage. There were barely any ecologically intact flowing waters and lakes, the means were lacking for more environmental protection. In some especially affected regions of Leipzig-Halle-Bitterfeld, loud speaker announcements were made to keep windows, the legal but counterproductive measures of environmental protection created further hostility toward the regime. As a consequence of the heated political mood, the planned local elections of May 1989 took on greater significance than usual. However, after falsified electoral results at some polling stations in 1986 had been noted by oppositional observers, such controls were now supposed to be systematically carried out in all regions. Since the previous summer, different groups – mostly religious in nature – had called on Christians in the GDR to actively intervene in the preparation of the election on 7 May 1989. In the face of rising unrest, the SED wanted as impressive an election result as possible, hence, all those who had applied to travel abroad, known opponents of the regime and those who had failed to vote in past elections were all removed from the electoral roll. By the same token, by mid-April 1989, more than 80,000 people declared their non-participation in the election, under the codename Symbol 89, the Stasi undertook measures to hinder non-participation

15.
East German general election, 1990
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Legislative elections were held in the German Democratic Republic on 18 March 1990. It was the first and only free election in the GDR. Four hundred deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, the largest bloc was the Alliance for Germany, led by the East German branch of the Christian Democratic Union and running on a platform of speedy reunification with the West. The runner-up was the East German branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, ran in a free election for the first time ever and finished in third place. The AfD came up just short of the 201 seats needed to govern alone, on 5 April 1990, the new Volkskammer elected the CDUs Sabine Bergmann-Pohl as its president. As the State Council was at the same time dissolved, she became East Germanys interim head of state, between them, the three main partners in the coalition commanded a two-thirds supermajority in the Volkskammer, enough to pass amendments to the constitution. The treaty took effect on 3 October

16.
Sovereignty
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Sovereignty is understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a term designating supreme authority over some polity. It is a basic principle underlying the dominant Westphalian model of state foundation, derived from Latin through French souveraineté, its attainment and retention, in both Chinese and Western culture, has traditionally been associated with certain moral imperatives upon any claimant. The concept of sovereignty has been discussed throughout history, and is still actively debated and it has changed in its definition, concept, and application throughout, especially during the Age of Enlightenment. The current notion of state sovereignty contains four aspects consisting of territory, population, authority, Sovereignty is a hypothetical trade, in which two potentially conflicting sides, respecting de facto realities of power, exchange such recognitions as their least costly strategy. The Roman jurist Ulpian observed that, The imperium of the people is transferred to the Emperor, the Emperor is not bound by the law. Emperor is the law making and abiding force, Ulpian was expressing the idea that the Emperor exercised a rather absolute form of sovereignty, although he did not use the term expressly. Classical Ulpians statements were known in medieval Europe, but sovereignty was an important concept in medieval times, Medieval monarchs were not sovereign, at least not strongly so, because they were constrained by, and shared power with, their feudal aristocracy. Furthermore, both were strongly constrained by custom, Sovereignty existed during the Medieval Period as the de jure rights of nobility and royalty, and in the de facto capability of individuals to make their own choices in life. 1380–1400, the issue of sovereignty was addressed in Geoffrey Chaucers Middle English collection of Canterbury Tales. The story revolves around the knight Sir Gawain granting to Dame Ragnell, his new bride, what is purported to be wanted most by women and we desire most from men, From men both lund and poor, To have sovereignty without lies. For where we have sovereignty, all is ours, Though a knight be ever so fierce and it is our desire to have master Over such a sir. Jean Bodin, partly in reaction to the chaos of the French wars of religion, in his 1576 treatise Les Six Livres de la République Bodin argued that it is inherent in the nature of the state that the sovereign must have both great and perpetual authority. Bodin rejected the notion of transference of sovereignty from people to the ruler, however, although he is often connected with absolutism, Bodin held some moderate opinions on how government should in practice be carried out. Thus, Bodin’s sovereign was restricted by the law of the state. Bodin believed that “the most divine, most excellent, and the form most proper to royalty is governed partly aristocratically and partly democratically”. With his doctrine that sovereignty is conferred by law, Bodin predefined the scope of the divine right of kings. During the Age of Enlightenment, the idea of sovereignty gained both legal and moral force as the main Western description of the meaning and power of a State

17.
Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty would result in the westward of Polands borders back to approximately as they were before 1722. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the boundaries for the future zones of occupation. The so-called line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border was temporary. After two months in which they had areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries, the Memel Territory, annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the American zone consisted of Bavaria and Hesse in Southern Germany, and the northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. The ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven were also placed under American control because of the American request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany, the headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. Beginning in May 1945, many of the American combat troops and airmen in, Army, the Army Air Forces, and the U. S. Navy upon their return home. The Canadian Army was tied down in surrounding the Netherlands until the Germans there surrendered on 5 May 1945 – just two days before the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe to U. S. Then in July 1945, the British Army withdrew from small slices of Germany that had previously agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army. Within the British Zone of Occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the German state of Hamburg, also in 1947, the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation located within the British Zone. In 1946, the Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers in Hanover, despite its being one of the Allied Powers, the French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany. This created a French zone of occupation in the westernmost part of Germany and it consisted of two barely contiguous areas of Germany along the French border that met at just a single point along the Rhine River. It included the Saargebiet, which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946, by 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar area and allied occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further adjacent municipalities to the Saar, included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law

18.
Potsdam Agreement
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It also included Germanys demilitarisation, reparations and the prosecution of war criminals. Executed as a communiqué, the Agreement was not a treaty according to international law. It was superseded by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed on 12 September 1990,45 years later. After the Second World War, and the Tehran, Casablanca and Yalta Conferences, the Allies by the Berlin Declaration of June 5,1945, had assumed supreme authority over Germany. In the Three Power Conference of Berlin from 17 July to 2 August 1945, they agreed to and adopted the Protocol of the Proceedings, August 1,1945, the Provisional Government of the French Republic agreed with reservations on August 4. In the Potsdam Agreement the Allies agree, Establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers, see the London Conference of Foreign Ministers and the Moscow Conference which took place later in 1945. The principles to govern the treatment of Germany in the control period. See European Advisory Commission and Allied Control Council A, treatment of Germany as a single unit. Reduction or destruction of all civilian heavy-industry with war-potential, such as shipbuilding, machine production, restructuring of German economy towards agriculture and light-industry. This section covered reparation claims of the USSR from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, all but thirty submarines to be sunk and the rest of the German Navy was to be divided equally between the three powers. The German merchant marine was to be divided equally between the three powers, and they would distribute some of those ships to the other Allies. But until the end of the war with the Empire of Japan all the ships would remain under the authority of the Combined Shipping Adjustment Board, City of Königsberg and the adjacent area. The United States and Britain declared that they would support the transfer of Königsberg, the Three Governments reaffirm their intention to bring these criminals to swift and sure justice. The first list of defendants will be published before 1st September, Austria, The government of Austria was to be decided after British and American forces entered Vienna, and that Austria should not pay any reparations. Poland There should be a Provisional Government of National Unity recognised by all three powers, and that those Poles who were serving in British Army formations should be free to return to Poland, conclusion on peace treaties and admission to the United Nations organization. See Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers which took place later in 1945, further he three Governments have also charged the Council of Foreign Ministers with the task of preparing peace treaties for Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary and Romania. The conclusion of Peace Treaties with recognized democratic governments in these States will also enable the three Governments to support applications from them for membership of the United Nations, territorial Trusteeship Italian former colonies would be decided in connection with the preparation of a peace treaty for Italy. Like most of the other former European Axis powers the Italian peace treaty was signed at the 1947 Paris Peace Conference and they agree that any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner

19.
Oder-Neisse Line
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The Oder–Neisse line is the international border between Germany and Poland. The small remainder, consisting of the surrounding the German city of Königsberg in northern East Prussia, was allocated to the Soviet Union after the war. The vast majority of the native German population in these territories fled, the Oder–Neisse line marked the border between the German Democratic Republic and Poland from 1950 to 1990. East Germany confirmed the border with Poland in 1950, while West Germany, after a period of refusal, in 1990 the newly reunified Germany and the Republic of Poland signed a treaty recognizing it as their border. The lower River Oder in Silesia was Piast Polands western border from the 10th until the 13th century, from around the time of World War I, some proposed restoring this line, in the belief that it would provide protection against Germany. One of the first proposals was made in the Russian Empire, later, when the Nazis gained power, the German territory to the east of the line was militarised by Germany with a view to a future war, and the Polish population faced Germanisation. The policies of Nazi Germany also encouraged nationalism among the German minority in Poland, before World War II, Polands western border with Germany had been fixed under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. However Pomerelia and Upper Silesia had been divided, leaving areas populated by the Polish as well as other Slavic minorities on the German side, between the wars, the concept of Western thought became popular among some Polish nationalists. The Polish motherland territories were defined by scholars like Zygmunt Wojciechowski as the areas included in Piast Poland in the 10th century, some Polish historians called for the return of territories up to the river Elbe. After Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland, some Polish politicians started to see a need to alter the border with Germany, a secure border was seen as essential, especially in the light of Nazi atrocities. During the war, Nazi Germany committed genocide against Polands population, especially Jews, alteration to the western border was seen as a punishment for the Germans for their atrocities and a compensation for Poland. The border changes were to provide Poland with a border and to prevent the Germans from using Western Pomerania. Only with the situation during the war were these territorial proposals modified. While these territorial claims were regarded as megalomaniac by the Soviet ambassador in London, on 16 December 1941 Stalin remarked in a meeting with the British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, though inconsistent in detail, that Poland should receive all German territory up to the river Oder. In May 1942 General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile, sent two memoranda to the US government, sketching a postwar Polish western border along the Oder, however, the proposal was dropped by the government-in-exile in late 1942. In post-war Poland the government described the Oder–Neisse line as the result of negotiations between Polish Communists and Stalin. Stalins political goals as well as his desire to foment enmity between Poles and Germans influenced his idea of a swap of western for eastern territory, thus ensuring control over both countries. As with before the war, some fringe groups advocated restoring the old border between Poland and Germany, at the Tehran Conference in late 1943 the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin raised the subject of Polands western frontier and its extension to the River Oder

20.
European Community
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The European Economic Community was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community. In 2009 the ECs institutions were absorbed into the EUs wider framework and it gained a common set of institutions along with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community as one of the European Communities under the 1965 Merger Treaty. In 1993, a single market was achieved, known as the internal market, which allowed for the free movement of goods, capital, services. In 1994, the market was formalised by the EEA agreement. This agreement also extended the market to include most of the member states of the European Free Trade Association. Upon the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and this was also when the three European Communities, including the EC, were collectively made to constitute the first of the three pillars of the European Union, which the treaty also founded. The EEC was also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking countries and sometimes referred to as the European Community even before it was renamed as such in 1993. In 1951, the Treaty of Paris was signed, creating the European Coal and this was an international community based on supranationalism and international law, designed to help the economy of Europe and prevent future war by integrating its members. In the aim of creating a federal Europe two further communities were proposed, a European Defence Community and a European Political Community. While the treaty for the latter was being drawn up by the Common Assembly, the ECSC parliamentary chamber, after the Messina Conference in 1955, Paul Henri Spaak was given the task to prepare a report on the idea of a customs union. The so-called Spaak Report of the Spaak Committee formed the cornerstone of the negotiations at Val Duchesse castle in 1956. Together with the Ohlin Report the Spaak Report would provide the basis for the Treaty of Rome, in 1956, Paul Henri Spaak led the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at the Val Duchesse castle, which prepared for the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The conference led to the signature, on 25 March 1957, the resulting communities were the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. These were markedly less supranational than the communities, due to protests from some countries that their sovereignty was being infringed. The first formal meeting of the Hallstein Commission, was held on 16 January 1958 at the Chateau de Val-Duchesse, the EEC was to create a customs union while Euratom would promote co-operation in the nuclear power sphere. The EEC rapidly became the most important of these and expanded its activities, one of the first important accomplishments of the EEC was the establishment of common price levels for agricultural products. In 1968, internal tariffs were removed on certain products, another crisis was triggered in regard to proposals for the financing of the Common Agricultural Policy, which came into force in 1962

21.
European Union
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The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2, the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished, a monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency. The EU operates through a system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community, the community and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit. While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations, the Maastricht Treaty established the European Union in 1993 and introduced European citizenship. The latest major amendment to the basis of the EU. The EU as a whole is the largest economy in the world, additionally,27 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7, because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as an emerging superpower. After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the supporters of the Community included Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak. These men and others are credited as the Founding fathers of the European Union. In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome and they also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958, the EEC and Euratom were created separately from the ECSC, although they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly. The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand, Euratom was to integrate sectors in nuclear energy while the EEC would develop a customs union among members. During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power, Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission. In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark, Ireland, Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum

22.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved

23.
Warsaw Pact
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The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and its largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than a month later. The Pact began to unravel in its entirety with the spread of the Revolutions of 1989 through the Eastern Bloc, beginning with the Solidarity movement in Poland, East Germany and Poland withdrew from the Pact in 1990. On 25 February 1991, the Pact was declared at an end at a meeting of defence, the USSR itself was dissolved in December 1991, although most of the former Soviet republics formed the Collective Security Treaty Organization shortly thereafter. Throughout the following 20 years, the seven Warsaw Pact countries outside the USSR each joined NATO, in the Western Bloc, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance—abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces, the strategy behind the formation of the Warsaw Pact was driven by the desire of the Soviet Union to dominate Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets wanted to keep their part of Europe theirs and not let the Americans take it from them and this policy was driven by ideological and geostrategic reasons. Ideologically, the Soviet Union arrogated the right to define socialism and communism, geostrategic principles also drove the Soviet Union to prevent invasion of its territory by Western European powers. Before the creation of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovak leadership, fearful of a rearmed Germany, sought to create a security pact with East Germany and these states protested strongly against the re-militarization of West Germany. The Warsaw Pact was primarily put in place as a consequence of the rearming of West Germany inside NATO, Soviet leaders, like many European countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain, feared Germany being once again a military power and a direct threat. The terrible consequences of German militarism remained a fresh memory among the Soviets, previously, in March 1954, the USSR, fearing the restoration of German militarism in West Germany, requested admission to NATO. The Soviet request to join NATO arose in the aftermath of the Berlin Conference of January–February 1954. James Dunn, who met in Paris with Eden, Adenauer and Robert Schuman, affirmed that the object should be to avoid discussion with the Russians, according to John Gaddis there was little inclination in Western capitals to explore this offer from USSR. But Eden, Dulles and Bidault opposed the proposal, the Soviets then decided to make a new proposal to the governments of the USA, UK and France to accept the participation of the USA in the proposed General European Agreement. Again all proposals, including the request to join NATO, were rejected by the UK, US, emblematic was the position of British General Hastings Ismay, supporter of NATO expansion, who said that NATO must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella. He opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954 saying that the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force, in April 1954 Adenauer made his first visit to the USA meeting Nixon, Eisenhower and Dulles. Ratification of EDC was delaying but the US representatives made it clear to Adenauer that EDC would have to become a part of NATO, memories of the Nazi occupation were still strong, and the rearmament of Germany was feared by France too

24.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General

25.
Die Wende
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It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process. The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 following a conference held by the Politbüro during which Günter Schabowski announced the opening of the border checkpoints. The transition to democracy in East Germany following the Peaceful Revolution, in hindsight, the German word Wende then took on a new meaning, the phrase seit der Wende, literally since the change, means since reunification or since the Wall fell. This period is marked by West German aid to East Germany, to some extent, Germany is still in the midst of the Nachwendezeit, differences between East and West still exist, and a process of inner reunification is not yet finished. This fundamental change has marked the reunification of Germany, the term was first used publicly in East Germany on 18 October 1989 in a speech by interim GDR leader Egon Krenz. Films and photos from private collections

26.
Hans-Dietrich Genscher
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In 1991 he was chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. A proponent of Realpolitik, Genscher has been called a master of diplomacy and he is widely regarded as having been a principal architect of German Reunification. After leaving office, he worked as a lawyer and international consultant, Genscher was born on 21 March 1927 in Reideburg, now a part of Halle, in what later became East Germany. He was the son of Hilda Kreime and Kurt Genscher and his father, a lawyer, died when Genscher was nine years old. In 1943, he was drafted to serve as a member of the Air Force Support Personnel at the age of 16. At age 17, close to the end of the war, he and he later said he was unaware of it at the time. Late in the war, Genscher was deployed as a soldier in General Walther Wencks 12th Army, after the German surrender he was an American and British prisoner of war, but was released after two months. Following World War II, he studied law and economics at the universities of Halle and Leipzig, in 1952, Genscher fled to West Germany, where he joined the Free Democratic Party. He passed his state examination in law in Hamburg in 1954. During these early years after the war, Genscher continuously struggled with illness, from 1956 to 1959 he was a research assistant of the FDP parliamentary group in Bonn. From 1959 to 1965 he was the FDP group managing director, in 1965 Genscher was elected on the North Rhine-Westphalian FDP list to the West German parliament and remained a member of parliament until his retirement in 1998. He was elected deputy chairman in 1968. After serving in several party offices, he was appointed minister of the interior by Chancellor Willy Brandt, whose Social Democratic Party was in coalition with the FDP, in 1974 he became foreign minister and vice chancellor, both posts he would hold for 18 years. From 1 October 1974 to 23 February 1985 he was Chairman of the FDP and it was during his tenure as party chairman that the FDP switched from being the junior member of social-liberal coalition to being the junior member of the 1982 coalition with the CDU/CSU. In 1985 he gave up the post of national chairman, after his resignation as Foreign Minister, Genscher was appointed honorary chairman of the FDP in 1992. In 1972, while minister for the interior, Genscher rejected Israels offer to send an Israeli special forces unit to Germany to deal with the Munich Olympics hostage crisis. A flawed rescue attempt by German police forces at Fürstenfeldbruck air base resulted in a shootout, which left all eleven hostages, five terrorists. Genschers popularity with Israel declined further when he endorsed the release of the three captured attackers following the hijacking of a Lufthansa aircraft on 29 October 1972 and he would later be a driving factor in continuing this policy in the new conservative-liberal coalition under Helmut Kohl

27.
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
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The partys dominant figure from 1950 to 1971, and effective leader of East Germany, was Walter Ulbricht. In 1953, an uprising against the Party was met with violent suppression by the Ministry of State Security and the Soviet Army. In 1971, Ulbricht was succeeded by Erich Honecker who presided over a period in the development of the GDR until he was forced to step down during the 1989 revolution. The partys last leader, Egon Krenz, was unsuccessful in his attempt to retain the SEDs hold on political governance of the GDR and was imprisoned after German reunification, the SEDs long-suppressed reform wing took over the party in the fall of 1989. In hopes of changing its image, on 16 December it renamed itself the Party of Democratic Socialism, abandoning Marxism–Leninism and it received 16. 4% of the vote in the 1990 parliamentary elections. In 2007, the PDS merged with Labour and Social Justice into The Left, official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by the socialist parties. However, there is evidence that the merger was more troubled than commonly portrayed. By all accounts, the Soviet occupation authorities applied pressure on the SPDs eastern branch to merge with the KPD. The newly merged party, with the help of the Soviet authorities, however, these elections were held under less-than-secret conditions, thus setting the tone for the next four decades. A truer picture of the SEDs support came with the elections in Berlin. In that contest, the SED received less than half the votes of the SPD, the bulk of the Berlin SPD remained aloof from the merger, even though Berlin was deep inside the Soviet zone. The Soviet Military Administration in Germany directly governed the areas of Germany following World War II. Also reported was a deal of difficulty in convincing the masses that the SED was a German political party. Soviet intelligence claimed to have a list of names of an SPD group within the SED that was covertly forging links with the SPD in the West, a problem for the Soviets that they identified with the early SED was its potential to develop into a nationalist party. At large party meetings, members applauded speakers who talked of nationalism much more than when they spoke of solving social problems, although it was nominally a merger of equals, from the beginning the SED was dominated by Communists. By the late 1940s, the SED began to purge most recalcitrant Social Democrats from its ranks, by the time of East Germanys formal establishment in 1949, the SED was a full-fledged Communist party—essentially the KPD under a new name. It began to develop along lines similar to other Communist parties in the Soviet bloc, over the years, the SED gained a reputation as one of the most hardline parties in the Soviet bloc. When Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the party organisation was based on, and co-located with, the institutions of the German Democratic Republic

28.
Egon Krenz
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Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz is a former East German politician who was the last communist leader of East Germany during the final months of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany, throughout his career, Krenz held a number of prominent positions in the SED. He was Honeckers deputy from 1984 onward, until he succeeded him in 1989 amid protests against the regime, Krenz was unsuccessful in his attempt to retain the communist regimes grip on power, and was forced to resign some weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After German reunification in 1990 he was sentenced to six and a half years in prison for manslaughter and he retired to the small town of Dierhagen in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern upon his release from prison in late 2003. Krenz was born in Kolberg in what was part of Germany and his family resettled in Damgarten in 1944. After serving in the Volksarmee, Krenz joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1955, throughout his career, Krenz held a number of posts in the SED and the communist government. He was leader of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation from 1971 to 1974 and he was also a member of the Peoples Chamber from 1971 to 1990, and a member of its presidium from 1971 to 1981. Between 1974 and 1983, he was leader of the communist youth movement, from 1981 to 1984 he was a member of the Council of State. In 1983 he joined the Politburo and became a secretary of the committee with responsibility for security. He rose to prominence when he became Honeckers deputy on the Council of State in 1984. Around the same time, he replaced Paul Verner as the unofficial number-two man in the SED leadership, although he was the youngest member of the Politburo, speculation abounded that Honecker had tapped him as his heir apparent. Krenz had been approached several months earlier about ousting Honecker, but was reluctant to move against a man he called my foster father and political teacher. He was initially willing to wait until the seriously ill Honecker died, despite many protests, the Peoples Chamber elected Krenz to both of Honeckers major state posts—Chairman of the Council of State and Chairman of the National Defence Council. For only the time in the Peoples Chambers forty-year history. In his first address as leader, Krenz promised democratic reforms, for instance, they still remembered that after the Tiananmen Square massacre, he had gone to China to thank Deng Xiaoping on behalf of the regime. For this and other reasons, Krenz was almost as detested as Honecker had been, indeed, almost as soon as he took power, thousands of East Germans took to the streets to demand his resignation. Also on the day he took office, Krenz received a top secret report from planning chief Gerhard Schürer that showed the depths of East Germanys economic crisis. It showed that East Germany did not have money to make payments on the massive foreign loans that propped up the economy

29.
Revolutions of 1989
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The Revolutions of 1989 were part of a revolutionary wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s that resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. The period is called the Autumn of Nations, a play on the term Spring of Nations sometimes used to describe the Revolutions of 1848. Socialism had been gaining momentum among working class citizens of the world since the 19th century and these culminated in the early 20th century, when several states and colonies formed their own communist parties. Many of the countries involved had hierarchical structures with monarchic governments, Socialism was undesirable within the circles of the ruling classes in the late 19th/early 20th century states, as such, communism was repressed. Its champions suffered persecution while people were discouraged from adopting it and this had been the practice even in states which identified as exercising a multi-party system. The Russian Revolution of 1917 saw the first communist state in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, during the period between the world wars, communism had been on the rise in many parts of the world, especially in towns and cities. This led to a series of purges in many countries to stifle the movement, violent resistance to this repression led to a decrease in support for communism in Central and Eastern Europe. In the early stages of World War II, both Nazi Germany and the USSR invaded and occupied the countries of Eastern Europe after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Germany then turned against and invaded the USSR, the battles of this Eastern Front were the largest in history. The USSR joined with the Allies and in conferences at Tehran and Yalta, the USSR fought the Germans to a standstill and finally began driving them back, reaching Berlin before the end of the war. Nazi ideology was violently anti-communist, and the Nazis brutally suppressed communist movements in the countries it occupied, Communists played a large part in the resistance to the Nazis in these countries. As the Soviets forced the Germans back, they assumed control of these devastated areas. After World War II, the Soviets ensured that communists loyal to Moscow took power in the countries it occupied, the Soviets retained troops throughout these territories. The Cold War saw these states, bound together by the Warsaw Pact, have continuing tensions with the capitalist west, the Chinese Revolution established communism in China in 1949. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, a spontaneous nationwide anti-authoritarian revolt, similarly in 1968, the USSR repressed the Prague Spring by organizing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Labour turmoil in Poland during 1980 had led to the formation of the independent trade union, Solidarity, led by Lech Wałęsa, during the mid-1980s, a younger generation of Soviet apparatchiks, led by Gorbachev, began advocating fundamental reform in order to reverse years of Brezhnev stagnation. After decades of growth, the Soviet Union was now facing a period of economic decline and needed Western technology. The costs of maintaining its military, the KGB, subsidies to client states etc. further strained the moribund Soviet economy. The first signs of major reform came in 1986 when Gorbachev launched a policy of glasnost in the Soviet Union, and emphasized the need for perestroika

30.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26,1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and that evening at 7,32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag. Previously, from August to December, all the individual republics, the week before the unions formal dissolution,11 republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also signalled the end of the Cold War, some have joined NATO and the European Union. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on March 11,1985, Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy, the reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On April 23,1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept the power ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and this liberalisation, however, fostered nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union. Under Gorbachevs leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, in May 1985, Gorbachev delivered a speech in Leningrad advocating reforms and an anti-alcohol campaign to tackle widespread alcoholism. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised in order to make these drinks more expensive and a disincentive to consumers, unlike most forms of rationing intended to conserve scarce goods, this was done to restrict sales with the overt goal of curtailing drunkenness. Gorbachevs plan also included billboards promoting sobriety, increased penalties for public drunkenness, however, Gorbachev soon faced the same adverse economic reaction to his prohibition as did the last Tsar. The disincentivization of alcohol consumption was a blow to the state budget according to Alexander Yakovlev. Alcohol production migrated to the market, or through moonshining as some made bathtub vodka with homegrown potatoes. The purpose of these reforms, however, was to prop up the centrally planned economy, unlike later reforms. The latter, disparaged as Mr Nyet in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs, gromyko was relegated to the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, as he was considered an old thinker. In the fall of 1985, Gorbachev continued to bring younger, at the next Central Committee meeting on October 15, Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Talyzin became a candidate. Finally, on December 23,1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin, Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization. The CTAG Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja by three workers, Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss and its name refers to the human-rights statements of the Helsinki Accords

31.
European integration
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European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic, social and cultural integration of states wholly or partially in Europe. European integration has primarily come about through the European Union and its policies, one of the first to conceive of a union of European nations was Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who wrote the Pan-Europa manifesto in 1923. In a speech delivered on 19 September 1946 at the University of Zürich, Switzerland, France and Germany must take the lead together. The question of how to avoid wars between the nation-states was essential for the first theories, federalism and Functionalism proposed the containment of the nation-state, while Transactionalism sought to theorise the conditions for the stabilisation of the nation-state system. One of the most influential theories of European integration is neofunctionalism, haas and further investigated by Leon Lindberg. The important debate between neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism still remains central in understanding the development and setbacks of the European Union, but as the empirical world has changed, so have the theories and thus the understanding of European Integration. Today there is a new focus on the complex policy-making in the EU and multi-level governance trying to produce a theory of the workings. Various federalist organisations have created over time supporting the idea of a federal Europe. These include the Union of European Federalists, the European Movement International, the Union of European Federalists is a European non-governmental organisation, campaigning for a Federal Europe. It consists of 20 constituent organisations and it has been active at the European, the European Federalist Party is the pro-European, pan-European and federalist political party which advocates further integration of the EU and the establishment of a Federal Europe. Its aim is to gather all Europeans to promote European federalism and it has national sections in 15 countries. There are various agreements with overlapping membership, several countries take part in a larger number of agreements than others. e. The German-speaking Community of Belgium is not included and these are Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia are not part of European Organization for Nuclear Research, Slovenia has formally confirmed its wish to become a member. Some agreements that are related to countries of the European continent, are also valid in territories outside the continent. g. Other initiatives have removed barriers to trade in European regions, and increased the free movement of people, labour, goods. It includes the states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, the Nordic Passport Union, created in 1954 but implemented on 1 May 1958, establishes free movement across borders without passports for the countries citizens. The organisation was planned in Vilnius on 1 December 1990, the Baltic Free Trade Area was a trade agreement between Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia

32.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943

33.
Soviet Bloc
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The Eastern Bloc was the group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The terms Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc were also used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who viewed the Soviet Union as a socialist island, Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia in northern Romania were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Lithuania was added in a secret protocol in September 1939. During the Occupation of East Poland by the Soviet Union, the Soviets liquidated the Polish state, Soviet authorities immediately started a campaign of sovietization of the newly Soviet-annexed areas. Soviet authorities collectivized agriculture, and nationalized and redistributed private and state-owned Polish property, the international community condemned this initial annexation of the Baltic states and deemed it illegal. In June 1941, Germany broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union, from the time of this invasion to 1944, the areas annexed by the Soviet Union were part of Germanys Ostland. Thereafter, the Soviet Union began to push German forces westward through a series of battles on the Eastern Front, from 1943 to 1945, several conferences regarding Post-War Europe occurred that, in part, addressed the potential Soviet annexation and control of countries in Central Europe. I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he wont try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace. While meeting with Stalin and Roosevelt in Tehran in 1943, Churchill stated that Britain was vitally interested in restoring Poland as an independent country, Britain did not press the matter for fear that it would become a source of inter-allied friction. In February 1945, at the conference at Yalta, Stalin demanded a Soviet sphere of influence in Central Europe. Stalin eventually was convinced by Churchill and Roosevelt not to dismember Germany, after resistance by Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin promised a re-organization of the current pro-Soviet government on a broader democratic basis in Poland. He stated that the new primary task would be to prepare elections. In addition to reparations, Stalin pushed for war booty, which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. At first, the Soviets concealed their role in other Eastern Bloc politics, as a young communist was told in East Germany, its got to look democratic, but we must have everything in our control. Moscow-trained cadres were put into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation, elimination of the bourgeoisies social and financial power by expropriation of landed and industrial property was accorded absolute priority. These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations, the bloc system permitted the Soviet Union to exercise domestic control indirectly. Crucial departments such as responsible for personnel, general police, secret police

34.
Allies of World War II
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The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as the British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland was a minor factor after its defeat in 1939, France was a minor factor after its defeat in 1940. China had already been into a war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942, however, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the Big Three – the UK, the Soviet Union, in 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations. The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I, Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles. The new Weimar republics legitimacy became shaken, by the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria. The likelihood of war was high, and the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement, in Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933, after four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China. The League of Nations condemned Japans actions and initiated sanctions on Japan, the United States, in particular, was angered at Japan and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before, Britain and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war. On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country, also, the French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921. The Soviet Union sought an alliance with the powers. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Then, on 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and quickly defeated Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini

35.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare

36.
Brezhnev stagnation
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The stagnation was the result of failed central planning. On the other hand, Brezhnev introduced a neologism developed socialism, the term stems from Khrushchevs promise of reaching communism in 20 years. The 1964–82 period in the Soviet Union began hopefully but devolved into disillusionment, historians, scholars, and specialists are uncertain what caused the stagnation, with some arguing that the planned economy suffered from systemic flaws which inhibited growth. Others have argued that the lack of reform, or the high expenditures on defense, the majority of scholars set the starting year for economic stagnation at 1975, although some claim that it began as early as the 1960s. The political stagnation is associated with the establishment of gerontocracy, which came into being as part of the policy of stability, Brezhnev has been criticised posthumously for doing too little to improve the economic situation. Throughout his rule, no major reforms were initiated and the few proposed reforms were very modest or opposed by the majority of the Soviet leadership. By the 1970s, Brezhnev had consolidated power to stop any radical reform-minded attempts by Kosygin. When Brezhnev died in November 1982, the Soviet Union he handed over to his successor, during his short rule, Andropov introduced modest reforms, he died little more than a year later in February 1984. Chernenko, his successor, continued much of Andropovs policies, scholars debate whether those policies improved the economic situation in the country. Gorbachevians have criticised Brezhnev, and Brezhnevism in general, for being too conservative, gorbachev once referred to Brezhnevs rule as The Zombie Apocalypse. The value of all consumer goods manufactured in 1972 in retail prices was about 118 billion rubles, the Era of Stagnation ended with Gorbachevs rise to power during which political and social life was democratised even though the economy was still stagnating. Service treats the problems of agriculture during the Breznhev era as proof of the need for decollectivization, in short, Service considers the Soviet economy to have become static during this time period, and Brezhnevs policy of stability was a recipe for political disaster. His reasoning for this stagnation was the demand for unskilled workers resulted in a decline of productivity. Sakwa believes that stability itself led to stagnation and claimed that without strong leadership Soviet socialism had a tendency to relapse into stagnation, Mark Harrison claims that the economic performance of the Brezhnev era has not been looked at objectively as analysis of the period sometimes used lower estimates. Harrison further claims that in the period between 1928 and 1973 the Soviet economy grew in a phase that would surpass the United States one day. During the international oil crisis, growth in the Soviet Union, one explanation, according to Harrison, is that the Soviet economy could not sustain its extensive growth patterns. Brown states there were high rates in the mid-to-late 1960s claiming that the Soviet economy enjoyed stronger growth in the second half of the 1960s than it ever did thereafter. The link between growth rates and the Kosygin reform is, according to Brown, tenuous, but says that From the point of view of communist rulers

37.
Eastern Bloc politics
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The resulting governments contained vestiges of western democracies to initially conceal the process. Party and social purges were employed along with the use of secret police organizations modeled on the Soviet KGB to monitor. At the end of World War II by mid-1945, all eastern, Eastern Poland, eastern Finland, the Baltics, Bukovina, and Bessarabia, now called Moldova, were forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union. The eastern Polish territories remain part of Ukraine and Belarus as of the early 21st century, Red Army and NKVD personnel began to impose the communist system in 1939. The Soviet invasion of these areas in 1939 created local allies, the Soviet Union began planning the transformation of Eastern Europe even before the 1941 Nazi invasion of the USSR. There is evidence that the USSR did not expect to create a communist bloc quickly or easily, Ivan Maiskii, Soviet foreign minister under Stalin, wrote in 1944 that all European nations would eventually become communist states but only after a period of three to four decades. Eastern European communist leaders generally participated in national front coalitions during the 1930s to oppose Nazi expansion and these coalitions were modeled upon those of Spain and France. Historian Tony Judt described the war in Spain as “a dry run for the seizure of power in Eastern Europe after 1945. ”These included Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, part of eastern Finland. By 1945, these additional annexed countries totaled approximately 180,000 additional square miles, or slightly more than the area of West Germany, East Germany and Austria combined. The Soviets encouraged the worship of everything Russian and the reproduction of their own Communist structural hierarchies in each of the Bloc states, the Soviets mandated expropriation and etatization of private property. In addition, media in the Eastern Bloc served as an organ of the state, completely reliant on, the state owned radio and television organizations while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the ruling communist party. The initial issue arising in countries occupied by the Red Army in 1944 and 1945 was the manner in which to transform occupation power into control over domestic development. Because communists were relatively small minorities in all countries but Czechoslovakia, at the wars end, concealment of the Kremlins role was considered crucial to neutralize resistance and to make the regimes appear not only autochthonous, but also to resemble bourgeois democracies. Dissenters who approached such foreigners were arrested, for many years after World War II, even the best informed foreigners did not know the number of arrested or executed Soviet citizens, or how poorly the Soviet economy had performed. In the other countries of the Bloc, Stalin stated that the Eastern European version of democracy was a modification of western bourgeois democracy. This sovietization involved the gradual assimilation of local political, socioeconomic, Moscow trained cadres were placed into crucial power positions to fulfill orders regarding sociopolitical transformation. Elimination of the social and financial power by expropriation of landed. These measures were publicly billed as reforms rather than socioeconomic transformations and those organizations were managed by communist cadres, though some diversity was permitted initially

38.
Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. Raised in a family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932. After moving to Hollywood in 1937, he became an actor, Reagan was twice elected President of the Screen Actors Guild, the labor union for actors, where he worked to root out Communist influence. In the 1950s, he moved into television and was a speaker at General Electric factories. Having been a lifelong Democrat, his views changed and he became a conservative and in 1962 switched to the Republican Party. In 1964, Reagans speech, A Time for Choosing, in support of Barry Goldwaters foundering presidential campaign, Building a network of supporters, he was elected Governor of California in 1966. Entering the presidency in 1981, Reagan implemented sweeping new political, in his first term he survived an assassination attempt, spurred the War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. During his re-election bid, Reagan campaigned on the notion that it was Morning in America, foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending of the Cold War, the bombing of Libya, and the Iran–Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an empire, and during his famous speech at the Brandenburg Gate. Jack, a salesman and storyteller, was the grandson of Irish Catholic immigrants from County Tipperary, Reagan had one older brother, John Neil Reagan, who became an advertising executive. As a boy, Reagans father nicknamed his son Dutch, due to his fat little Dutchman-like appearance and Dutchboy haircut, Reagans family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth, Galesburg, and Chicago. In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C, Pitney Variety Store until finally settling in Dixon. After his election as president, residing in the upstairs White House private quarters, for the time, Reagan was unusual in his opposition to racial discrimination, and recalled a time in Dixon when the local inn would not allow black people to stay there. Reagan brought them back to his house, where his mother invited them to stay the night and have breakfast the next morning, after the closure of the Pitney Store in late 1920 and the familys move to Dixon, the midwestern small universe had a lasting impression on Reagan. Reagan attended Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports and his first job was as a lifeguard at the Rock River in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard and he attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs described him as an indifferent student and he majored in economics and sociology, and graduated with a C grade

39.
Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law. While he was at the university, he joined the Communist Party, in 1970, he was appointed the First Party Secretary of the Stavropol Regional Committee, First Secretary to the Supreme Soviet in 1974, and appointed a member of the Politburo in 1979. Within three years of the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, following the brief interregna of Andropov and Chernenko, before he reached the post, he had occasionally been mentioned in Western newspapers as a likely next leader and a man of the younger generation at the top level. Gorbachevs policies of glasnost and perestroika and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War. He was awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 and this was Gorbachevs third attempt to establish a political party, having started the Social Democratic Party of Russia in 2001 and the Union of Social Democrats in 2007. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, into a mixed Russian-Ukrainian family of migrants from Voronezh, as a child, Gorbachev experienced the Soviet famine of 1932–1933. He recalled in a memoir that In that terrible year nearly half the population of my village, Privolnoye, starved to death. Both of his grandfathers were arrested on charges in the 1930s. His father was a combine harvester operator and World War II veteran and his mother, Maria Panteleyevna Gorbacheva, was a kolkhoz worker. He was brought up mainly by his Ukrainian maternal grandparents, in his teens, he operated combine harvesters on collective farms. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1955 with a degree in law, in 1967 he qualified as an agricultural economist via a correspondence masters degree at the Stavropol Institute of Agriculture. While at the university, he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon very active within the party. Gorbachev met his wife, Raisa Titarenko, daughter of a Ukrainian railway engineer. They married in September 1953 and moved to Stavropol upon graduation and she gave birth to their only child, daughter Irina Mikhailovna Virganskaya, in 1957. Raisa Gorbacheva died of leukemia in 1999, Gorbachev has two granddaughters and one great granddaughter. Gorbachev attended the important twenty-second Party Congress in October 1961, where Nikita Khrushchev announced a plan to surpass the U. S. in per capita production within twenty years, Gorbachev rose in the Communist League hierarchy and worked his way up through territorial leagues of the party

40.
Tear down this wall!
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The tear down this wall speech was not the first time Reagan had addressed the issue of the Berlin Wall. In a visit to West Berlin in June 1982, hed stated Id like to ask the Soviet leaders one question Why is the wall there, on the day before Reagans 1987 visit,50,000 people had demonstrated against the presence of the American president in Berlin. During the visit itself, wide swaths of Berlin were closed off to prevent further anti-Reagan protests, the district of Kreuzberg, in particular, was targeted in this respect, with movement throughout this portion of the city in effect restrained completely. American officials in West Germany and presidential speechwriters, including Peter Robinson, Robinson traveled to West Germany to inspect potential speech venues, and gained an overall sense that the majority of West Berliners opposed the wall. Despite getting little support for suggesting Reagan demand the walls removal, on May 18,1987, President Reagan met with his speechwriters and responded to the speech by saying, I thought it was a good, solid draft. White House Chief of Staff Howard Baker objected, saying it sounded extreme and unpresidential, nevertheless, Reagan liked the passage, saying, I think well leave it in. Chief speechwriter Anthony Dolan gives another account of the origins, however. He records vivid impressions of his own reaction and Robinsons at the time and this led to a friendly exchange of letters between Robinson and Dolan over their differing accounts, which The Wall Street Journal published. Arriving in Berlin on June 12,1987, President and Mrs. Reagan were taken to the Reichstag, Reagan then made his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2,00 pm, in front of two panes of bulletproof glass. Among the spectators were West German president Richard von Weizsäcker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl and that afternoon, Reagan said, We welcome change and openness, for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, general Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, yes, across Europe, this wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith, it cannot withstand truth, the speech received relatively little coverage from the media, Time magazine claimed 20 years later. East German Politburo member Guenter Schabowski considered the speech to be absurd, former West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl said he would never forget standing near Reagan when he challenged Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. He was a stroke of luck for the world, especially for Europe, in an interview with Reagan himself, he recalls the East German police not allowing people to get near the wall, which prevented the citizens from experiencing the speech at all. The fact that West German police acted in a way has however seldom been noted in accounts such as these. Speeches and debates of Ronald Reagan Robinson, Peter and its My Party, A Republicans Messy Love Affair with the GOP. Hardcover, Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-52665-7 Ambassador John C, kornblum, Reagans Brandenburg Concerto, The American Interest, May–June 2007 Ratnesar, Romesh

41.
Berlin Wall
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The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992, the barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany, the West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the Wall of Shame—a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt—while condemning the Walls restriction on freedom of movement. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration, during this period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around Berlin. After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany, crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall, contrary to popular belief the Walls actual demolition did not begin until the summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification, the capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the citys location, which was fully within the Soviet zone. Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the occupying powers. Property and industry was nationalized in the East German zone, if statements or decisions deviated from the described line, reprimands and punishment would ensue, such as imprisonment, torture and even death. Indoctrination of Marxism-Leninism became a part of school curricula, sending professors. The East Germans created a political police apparatus that kept the population under close surveillance. In 1948, following disagreements regarding reconstruction and a new German currency, Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several countries began a massive airlift, supplying West Berlin with food. The Soviets mounted a public campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein, in May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin. The German Democratic Republic was declared on 7 October 1949, by a secret treaty, the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs accorded the East German state administrative authority, but not autonomy. The Soviets permeated East German administrative, military and secret police structures and had full control, East Germany differed from West Germany, which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government

42.
Winston Churchill
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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD PC DL FRS RA was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, in 1963, he was the first of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States. Churchill was born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough and his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young officer, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns, at the forefront of politics for fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, during the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He then briefly resumed active service on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned to government under Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister and he led Britain as Prime Minister until victory over Nazi Germany had been secured. After the Conservative Party suffered a defeat in the 1945 general election. He publicly warned of an Iron Curtain of Soviet influence in Europe, after winning the 1951 election, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His second term was preoccupied by foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, domestically his government laid great emphasis on house-building. Churchill suffered a stroke in 1953 and retired as Prime Minister in 1955. Upon his death aged ninety in 1965, Elizabeth II granted him the honour of a state funeral and his highly complex legacy continues to stimulate intense debate amongst writers and historians. Born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the noble Spencer family, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, like his father. His ancestor George Spencer had changed his surname to Spencer-Churchill in 1817 when he became Duke of Marlborough, to highlight his descent from John Churchill, Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, two months prematurely, in a bedroom in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. From age two to six, he lived in Dublin, where his grandfather had been appointed Viceroy, Churchills brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill, was born during this time in Ireland

43.
Perestroika
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The literal meaning of perestroika is “restructuring”, referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system. Perestroika is sometimes argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced some market-like reforms. The goal of the perestroika, however, was not to end the command economy, Perestroika and resistance to it are often cited as major catalysts leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In May 1985, Gorbachev gave a speech in Leningrad in which he admitted the slowing-down of the economic development and this was the first time in Soviet history that a Soviet leader had done so. During the initial period of Mikhail Gorbachevs time in power, he talked about modifying central planning, Gorbachev and his team of economic advisors then introduced more fundamental reforms, which became known as perestroika. In July 1987, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union passed the Law on State Enterprise, the law stipulated that state enterprises were free to determine output levels based on demand from consumers and other enterprises. Enterprises had to fulfill orders, but they could dispose of the remaining output as they saw fit. However, at the time the state still held control over the means of production for these enterprises. Enterprises bought input from suppliers at negotiated contract prices, under the law, enterprises became self-financing, that is, they had to cover expenses through revenues. No longer was the government to rescue unprofitable enterprises that could face bankruptcy, finally, the law shifted control over the enterprise operations from ministries to elected workers collectives. Gosplans responsibilities were to supply general guidelines and national investment priorities, the Law on Cooperatives, enacted in May 1988, was perhaps the most radical of the economic reforms during the early part of the Gorbachev era. For the first time since Vladimir Lenins New Economic Policy was abolished in 1928, the law permitted private ownership of businesses in the services, manufacturing, the law initially imposed high taxes and employment restrictions, but it later revised these to avoid discouraging private-sector activity. Under this provision, cooperative restaurants, shops, and manufacturers became part of the Soviet scene, Gorbachev brought perestroika to the Soviet Unions foreign economic sector with measures that Soviet economists considered bold at that time. His program virtually eliminated the monopoly that the Ministry of Foreign Trade had once held on most trade operations, in addition, regional and local organizations and individual state enterprises were permitted to conduct foreign trade. This change was an attempt to redress a major imperfection in the Soviet foreign trade regime, after potential Western partners complained, the government revised the regulations to allow majority foreign ownership and control. Under the terms of the Joint Venture Law, the Soviet partner supplied labor, infrastructure, the foreign partner supplied capital, technology, entrepreneurial expertise, and in many cases, products and services of world competitive quality. Gorbachevs economic changes did not do much to restart the sluggish economy in the late 1980s. The reforms decentralised things to some extent, although price controls remained, as did the rubles inconvertibility, by 1990 the government had virtually lost control over economic conditions

44.
Solidarity (Polish trade union)
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Solidarity is a Polish labour union that was founded on 17 September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first trade union in a Warsaw Pact country that was not controlled by a communist party and its membership reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 Congress, which constituted one third of the total working-age population of Poland. In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad social movement, using the methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers rights. In the unions clandestine years, the Pope and the United States provided significant financial support, the round table talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August, a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed, in December 1990, Wałęsa was elected President of Poland. Since then Solidarity has become a traditional, liberal trade union. Its membership had dropped to 680,000 by 2010 and 400,000 by 2011, in the 1970s Polands government raised food prices while wage stagnated. This led to the June 1976 protests and subsequent government crackdown on dissent, groups like the KOR and ROPCIO began to form underground networks to monitor and oppose the governments abusive behavior. Labour unions formed an important part of this network, in 1979, the Polish economy shrank for the first time since World War II by 2 percent. The foreign debt reached around $18 billion by 1980, for participation in the illegal trade union, Anna Walentynowicz was fired from work at the Gdańsk Shipyard on 7 August 1980,5 months before she was due to retire. This management decision enraged the workers of the Shipyard, who staged a strike action on 14 August defending Anna Walentynowicz, Anna Waletynowicz and Alina Pienkowska transformed a strike over bread and butter issues into a solidarity strike in sympathy with other striking establishments. Solidarity emerged on 31 August 1980 in Gdańsk at the Lenin Shipyards when the communist government of Poland signed the agreement allowing for its existence, on 17 September 1980, over 20 Inter-factory Founding Committees of free trade unions merged at the congress into one national organization NSZZ Solidarity. It officially registered on 10 November 1980, Wałęsa and others formed a broad anti-Soviet social movement ranging from people associated with the Catholic Church to members of the anti-Soviet left. Solidarity advocated non-violence in its members activities, in September 1981 Solidaritys first national congress elected Wałęsa as a president and adopted a republican program, the Self-governing Republic. The government attempted to destroy the union with the law of 1981 and several years of repression. In Poland, the Roundtable Talks between the government and Solidarity-led opposition led to elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed, since 1989 Solidarity has become a more traditional trade union, and had relatively little impact on the political scene of Poland in the early 1990s. A political arm founded in 1996 as Solidarity Electoral Action won the election in 1997

45.
Tank Man
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As the lead tank maneuvered to pass by the man, he repeatedly shifted his position in order to obstruct the tanks attempted path around him. The incident was filmed and seen worldwide, there were only a few sources who caught the incident on tape. More than 25 years after the incident, there is no information about the identity or fate of the man. At least one witness has stated that Tank Man was not the person who had opposed the tanks during the protest. Shao Jiang, who was a student leader, said, I witnessed a lot of the standing up. Tank Man is unique in that he is the one who was photographed and videoed. The incident took place at the edge of Tiananmen Square, along Changan Avenue, on June 5,1989. The man stood in the middle of the avenue, directly in the path of a column of approaching Type 59 tanks. He wore a shirt and black trousers, and he held two shopping bags. As the tanks came to a stop, the man gestured towards the tanks with one of the bags, in response, the lead tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action. After repeatedly attempting to go rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines. There was a pause with the man and the tanks having reached a quiet. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a conversation with a crew member at the gunners hatch. After ending the conversation, the man descended from the tank, the tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leaped in front of the vehicle once again. Video footage shows two figures in blue pulling the man away and disappearing with him into a nearby crowd, eyewitnesses are unsure who pulled him aside. In April 1998, Time included the Unknown Rebel in a feature titled Time 100, little is publicly known of the mans identity or that of the commander of the lead tank. One party member was quoted as saying, We can’t find him and we got his name from journalists

Unification of Germany
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The unification of Germany into a politically and administratively integrated nation state officially occurred on 18 January 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France. Princes of the German states gathered there to proclaim Wilhelm I of Prussia as German Emperor after the French capitulation in the Franco-Prussian War. The

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Germania, a personification of the German nation, appears in Philipp Veit 's fresco (1834–36). She is holding a shield with the coat of arms of the German Confederation (see enlargement below). The shields on which she stands are the arms of the seven traditional Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.

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The German Empire of 1871–1918. Since the German-speaking part of the multinational Austrian Empire was excluded, this geographic construction represented a lesser Germany (Kleindeutsch) solution.

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The Battle of the Nations monument, erected for the centennial in 1913, honors the efforts of the German people in the victory over Napoleon

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In October, 1817, approximately 500 students rallied at Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther had sought refuge over three centuries earlier, to demonstrate in favor of national unification. Wartburg was chosen for its symbolic connection to German national character. Contemporary, colored wood engraving.

East Germany
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies c

West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separa

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Konrad Adenauer in parliament, 1955

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Flag

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Rudi Dutschke, student leader.

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The Volkswagen Beetle – for many years the most successful car in the world – on the assembly line in Wolfsburg factory, 1973.

West Berlin
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West Berlin was an enclave which comprised the western part of the city of Berlin during the Cold War. It was formally controlled by the Western Allies and formed a de facto part of West Germany, and was entirely surrounded by the Soviet-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. West Berlin had great significance during the Cold War, as it was widel

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West Berlin, as of 1978

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Flag

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In 1969 U.S. military vehicles pass through the residential district of Zehlendorf, a routine reminder that West Berlin was still legally occupied by the Western Allies of World War II

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President John F. Kennedy addressing from Rathaus Schöneberg the people of West Berlin on Rudolf-Wilde-Platz (today's John-F.-Kennedy-Platz), 26 June 1963.

Brandenburg Gate
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The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, and one of the best-known landmarks of Germany. It is built on the site of a city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. It is located in the part of the city centre of Berlin within Mitte, at the junction of Unter den Linde

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The Brandenburg Gate

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The Brandenburg Gate quadriga at night

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Berlin in 1688: The future site of the Brandenburg gate was near the middle left of the map, separating the Tiergarten from Unter den Linden. Travellers going west from the city toward Brandenburg an der Havel could pass in this direction.

Graffiti
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Graffiti are writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a wall or other surface, often within public view. Graffiti range from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and they have existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, in modern times, paint and marke

Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks

Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular

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The Nebra sky disk is dated to c. 1600 BC.

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Flag

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Martin Luther (1483–1546) initiated the Protestant Reformation.

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Foundation of the German Empire in Versailles, 1871. Bismarck is at the center in a white uniform.

Grundgesetz
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The Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is the constitutional law of the Federal Republic of Germany. The Basic Law was approved on 8 May 1949 in Bonn and its original field of application comprised the states of the Trizone that were initially included in the then West German Federal Republic of Germany, but not West Berlin. As part of t

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Article 1, sentence 1: "Human dignity is inviolable".

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Germany

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The West German minister-presidents debating the Frankfurt Documents in Koblenz

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German stamp commemorating the work of the Parlamentarischer Rat

German Unity Day
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The Day of German Unity is the national day of Germany, celebrated on 3 October as a public holiday. It commemorates the anniversary of German reunification in 1990, when the goal of a united Germany that originated in the middle of the 19th century, was fulfilled again, therefore, the name addresses neither the re-union nor the union, but the unit

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The flag of unity at midnight of 3 October 1990 in front of the Reichstag

Iron Curtain
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The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. A term symbolizing the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, on the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that w

East Germans
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East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, was an Eastern Bloc state during the Cold War period. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it, as a result, the German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. East Germany, which lies c

Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying with

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First appearance of the word "ostarrichi", circled in red. Modern Austria honours this document, dated 996, as the founding of the nation.

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Flag

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Venus of Willendorf, 28,000 to 25,000 BC. Museum of Natural History Vienna

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"Heidentor" – Remains of the Roman military city of Carnuntum

Peaceful Revolution
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In addition to the Soviet Union’s shift in foreign policy – part of its glasnost and perestroika reforms hastened the destabilization of the SED and the success of the counter revolution. Through a change in leadership and a willingness to talk with opponents, however, due to the continued political instability and the threat of national bankruptcy

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A demonstration on 30 October 1989 in front of Plauen 's town hall

East German general election, 1990
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Legislative elections were held in the German Democratic Republic on 18 March 1990. It was the first and only free election in the GDR. Four hundred deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, the largest bloc was the Alliance for Germany, led by the East German branch of the Christian Democratic Union and running on a platform of speedy reunificatio

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All 400 seats in the Volkskammer 201 seats were needed for a majority

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East German general election, 1990

Sovereignty
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Sovereignty is understood in jurisprudence as the full right and power of a governing body to govern itself without any interference from outside sources or bodies. In political theory, sovereignty is a term designating supreme authority over some polity. It is a basic principle underlying the dominant Westphalian model of state foundation, derived

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The frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes ' Leviathan, depicting the Sovereign as a massive body wielding a sword and crozier and composed of many individual people.

Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty

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The Allied zones of occupation in post-war Germany, highlighting the Soviet zone (red), the inner German border (black line), and the zone from which American troops withdrew in July 1945 (purple). The provincial boundaries correspond largely to those of the pre-war states, before the creation of the present Länder (federal states).

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The C-Pennant

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Road sign delimiting the British sector of occupation in Berlin, 1984

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Flag used by ships registered in the British zone.

Potsdam Agreement
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It also included Germanys demilitarisation, reparations and the prosecution of war criminals. Executed as a communiqué, the Agreement was not a treaty according to international law. It was superseded by the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany signed on 12 September 1990,45 years later. After the Second World War, and the Tehran,

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The "Big Three": Attlee, Truman, Stalin

Oder-Neisse Line
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The Oder–Neisse line is the international border between Germany and Poland. The small remainder, consisting of the surrounding the German city of Königsberg in northern East Prussia, was allocated to the Soviet Union after the war. The vast majority of the native German population in these territories fled, the Oder–Neisse line marked the border b

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The Oder and Neisse rivers

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The Oder–Neisse line

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The Oder–Neisse line at Usedom

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Marking the new Polish-German Border in 1945

European Community
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The European Economic Community was a regional organisation which aimed to bring about economic integration among its member states. It was created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957, upon the formation of the European Union in 1993, the EEC was incorporated and renamed as the European Community. In 2009 the ECs institutions were absorbed into the EUs w

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French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed British membership, held back the development of Parliament's powers and was at the centre of the 'empty chair crisis' of 1965

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Flag

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The High Authority had more executive powers than the Commission which replaced it

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President Jacques Delors the last EEC Commission President.

European Union
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The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2, the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished, a monetary union was es

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In 1989, the Iron Curtain fell, enabling the union to expand further (Berlin Wall pictured).

NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party,

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The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949 and was ratified by the United States that August.

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Flag

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The German Bundeswehr provided the largest element of the allied land forces guarding the frontier in Central Europe.

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Reforms made under Mikhail Gorbachev led to the end of the Warsaw Pact.

Warsaw Pact
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The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the regional economic organization for the communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. While the Warsaw Pact was established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO, instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and in proxy wars. Both N

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Logo Military unit Organization The Warsaw Pact. Union of peace and socialism

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Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance

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Soviet philatelic commemoration: At its 20th anniversary in 1975, the Warsaw Pact remains On Guard for Peace and Socialism.

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Warsaw Pact "Big Seven" threats

United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the

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1943 sketch by Franklin Roosevelt of the United Nations' original three branches: The Four Policemen, an executive branch, and an international assembly of forty UN member states.

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Flag

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The Chilean delegation signing the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945

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Dag Hammarskjöld was a particularly active Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in 1961.

Die Wende
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It encompasses several processes and events which later have become synonymous with the overall process. The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 following a conference held by the Politbüro during which Günter Schabowski announced the opening of the border checkpoints. The transition to democracy in East Germany following the Peaceful Revolu

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Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate, 10 November 1989

Hans-Dietrich Genscher
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In 1991 he was chairman of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. A proponent of Realpolitik, Genscher has been called a master of diplomacy and he is widely regarded as having been a principal architect of German Reunification. After leaving office, he worked as a lawyer and international consultant, Genscher was born on 21 Marc

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Hans-Dietrich Genscher, 1978

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George H. W. Bush and Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 November 1989)

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Genscher in the GDR, 1990

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Hans-Dietrich Genscher, 2013

Socialist Unity Party of Germany
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The partys dominant figure from 1950 to 1971, and effective leader of East Germany, was Walter Ulbricht. In 1953, an uprising against the Party was met with violent suppression by the Ministry of State Security and the Soviet Army. In 1971, Ulbricht was succeeded by Erich Honecker who presided over a period in the development of the GDR until he wa

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The 11th Congress in Palast der Republik, East Berlin

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A SED Membership Card.

Egon Krenz
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Egon Rudi Ernst Krenz is a former East German politician who was the last communist leader of East Germany during the final months of 1989. He succeeded Erich Honecker as the General Secretary of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany, throughout his career, Krenz held a number of prominent positions in the SED. He was Honeckers deputy from 19

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Egon Krenz

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Egon Krenz (left) officially congratulating Erich Mielke on behalf of the government on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Stasi in 1985

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Egon Krenz addressing the Volkskammer.

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Miep Gies and Egon Krenz in 1989

Revolutions of 1989
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The Revolutions of 1989 were part of a revolutionary wave in the late 1980s and early 1990s that resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. The period is called the Autumn of Nations, a play on the term Spring of Nations sometimes used to describe the Revolutions of 1848. Socialism had been gaining momentum amon

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The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

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The fourth congress of the Polish United Workers' Party, held in 1963.

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Queue waiting to enter a store, a typical view in Poland of 1980s

Dissolution of the Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26,1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and that evening at 7,32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag. Previously, from August to Decembe

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Tanks at Red Square during the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt

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Mikhail Gorbachev (1987 photo)

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Figure of Liberty on the Freedom Monument in Riga, focus of 1986 Latvian demonstrations.

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The Dawn of Liberty monument in Almaty (Alma-Ata).

European integration
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European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic, social and cultural integration of states wholly or partially in Europe. European integration has primarily come about through the European Union and its policies, one of the first to conceive of a union of European nations was Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who wrote t

Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name o

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Hitler became Germany's head of state, with the title of Führer und Reichskanzler, in 1934.

Soviet Bloc
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The Eastern Bloc was the group of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact. The terms Communist Bloc and Soviet Bloc were also used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe. Soviet l

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The Big Three: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Premier of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, February 1945.

Allies of World War II
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The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United King

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Poland first to fight — British wartime poster supporting Poland after the German invasion, 1939

Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there w

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Photograph of the Berlin Wall taken from the West side. The Wall was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing and to stop an economically disastrous drain of workers. It was a symbol of the Cold War and its fall in 1989 marked the approaching end of the war.

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Allied troops in Vladivostok, August 1918, during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

Brezhnev stagnation
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The stagnation was the result of failed central planning. On the other hand, Brezhnev introduced a neologism developed socialism, the term stems from Khrushchevs promise of reaching communism in 20 years. The 1964–82 period in the Soviet Union began hopefully but devolved into disillusionment, historians, scholars, and specialists are uncertain wha

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The Era of Stagnation began under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev.

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Soviet Union

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Scholars are generally unsure on what the effect of the "Kosygin reform", named after its initiator Alexei Kosygin, was on economic growth

Eastern Bloc politics
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The resulting governments contained vestiges of western democracies to initially conceal the process. Party and social purges were employed along with the use of secret police organizations modeled on the Soviet KGB to monitor. At the end of World War II by mid-1945, all eastern, Eastern Poland, eastern Finland, the Baltics, Bukovina, and Bessarabi

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A propaganda photo of a citizen reading the Polish Communist party PKWN Manifesto, edited by Joseph Stalin, posted after the initial 1944 Soviet occupation of Poland in World War II before it was transformed into the People's Republic of Poland.

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Eastern Bloc

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A line for the distribution of cooking oil in Bucharest, Romania in May 1986.

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Pre-World War II Polish Prime Minister Stanisław Mikołajczyk returned to Poland in 1946 and then fled in 1947 after facing arrest following Bloc politics, persecution, and vote rigging

Ronald Reagan
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Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who was the 40th President of the United States, from 1981 to 1989. Before his presidency, he was the 33rd Governor of California, from 1967 to 1975, after a career as a Hollywood actor and union leader. Raised in a family in small towns of northern Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka Col

Mikhail Gorbachev
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Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman. He was the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union, having been General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and he was the countrys head of state from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991. Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai into a peasant Ukrainian

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Gorbachev in 1987

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Gorbachev in 1966

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U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev shaking hands at the American-Soviet summit in Washington, D.C., in 1987

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Gorbachev at the Brandenburg Gate in 1986 during a visit to East Germany

Tear down this wall!
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The tear down this wall speech was not the first time Reagan had addressed the issue of the Berlin Wall. In a visit to West Berlin in June 1982, hed stated Id like to ask the Soviet leaders one question Why is the wall there, on the day before Reagans 1987 visit,50,000 people had demonstrated against the presence of the American president in Berlin

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Reagan speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate

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A section of the wall mentioned in the speech.

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A piece of the Berlin Wall located at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA

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Main article

Berlin Wall
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The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992, the barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which circumscribed a wide area that contained anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other

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View from the West Berlin side of graffiti art on the wall in 1986. The wall's "death strip", on the east side of the wall, here follows the curve of the Luisenstadt Canal (filled in 1932).

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Satellite image of Berlin, with the wall's location marked in yellow

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East German Combat Groups of the Working Class close the border on 13 August 1961 in preparation of the Berlin Wall construction.

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East German construction workers building the Berlin Wall, 20 November 1961.

Winston Churchill
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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD PC DL FRS RA was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, in 1963, he was the first of only eight p

Perestroika
–
The literal meaning of perestroika is “restructuring”, referring to the restructuring of the Soviet political and economic system. Perestroika is sometimes argued to be a cause of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe, Perestroika allowed more independent actions from various ministries and introduced some m

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Perestroika postage stamp, 1988

Solidarity (Polish trade union)
–
Solidarity is a Polish labour union that was founded on 17 September 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first trade union in a Warsaw Pact country that was not controlled by a communist party and its membership reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 Congress, which constituted one third of the

2.
The logo of Solidarność painted on an overturned Soviet era T-55 in Prague in 1990

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Students in Scotland collect signatures for a petition in support of Solidarity in 1981

4.
Solidarity, ETUC Demonstration - Budapest 2011

Tank Man
–
As the lead tank maneuvered to pass by the man, he repeatedly shifted his position in order to obstruct the tanks attempted path around him. The incident was filmed and seen worldwide, there were only a few sources who caught the incident on tape. More than 25 years after the incident, there is no information about the identity or fate of the man.

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"Tank Man" temporarily stops the advance of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, in Beijing, in what is widely considered one of the iconic images of the 20th century. This photograph (one of four similar versions) was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press.

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The intersection in 2014, viewed from a different angle

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Wider shot by Stuart Franklin showing column of tanks.

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This picture was circulated via the Internet during the 24th anniversary of the Tianamen Square protests

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The West German minister-presidents debating the Frankfurt Documents in Koblenz

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German stamp commemorating the work of the Parlamentarischer Rat

4.
Shielded from any public on the secluded Herreninsel (Isle of Lords) in a Bavarian lake the Constitutional Convention at Herrenchiemsee, held in summer 1948 at the monastery Herrenchiemsee Abbey, draw up the draft for the basic law, central part of the constitution of Germany.

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Occupation zones of Germany, with the beige areas out of joint allied control (the former eastern territories of Germany acc. to the joint British, Soviet and US Potsdam Agreement of 1945 and the formerly western German Saar, following a French and US decision of 1946) and the state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (est. as a US enclave within the British zone (as of early 1947).

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Hungarian Jews are selected by Nazis to be sent to the gas chamber at Auschwitz concentration camp, May/June 1944.

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Romani children in Auschwitz, victims of medical experiments.

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In Germany, Sturmabteilung stormtroopers urge a national boycott of all Jewish businesses on 1 April 1933. These SA stormtroopers are outside Israel's Department Store in Berlin to deter customers. The signs read: "Germans! Defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews." (" Deutsche! Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden! ") The store was later ransacked during Kristallnacht in 1938, then handed over to a non-Jewish family.

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Late in the 17th century Treasury Ministers began to attend the Commons regularly. They were given a reserved place, called the Treasury Bench, to the Speaker's right where the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet members sit today

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Portrait of Sir Robert Walpole, studio of Jean-Baptiste van Loo, 1740. Walpole is considered to have been Britain's first Prime Minister.

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The German Confederation in 1820. Territories of the Prussian crown are blue, territories of the Austrian crown are yellow, and independent German Confederation states are grey. The red border shows the limits of the Confederation. Note that both Prussia and Austria controlled non-Confederation lands.